Evaluation of Wheat Advance Lines under Rainfed Conditions

Development of high yielding and drought tolerant cultivars is one of the prime objectives of all wheat breeding programs. An experiment was performed at Malakandher Research Farm, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during 2011-12 to evaluate 14 wheat advance lines with four cultivars i.e Atta-Habib, Siren, Pirsabak-2005 and Pirsabak-2008 used as checks under rainfed conditions. The experiment was not irrigated throughout the whole growing season. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 replications. Each entry was planted in 03 rows, 03 meter long and 30 cm apart. To minimize environmental effects on the genotypes recommended cultural practices were applied same for all the treatments. Data were recorded on 6 parameters viz, days to maturity, spike length, spikelets spike -1 , grains spike -1 , spike weight and spike density. Highly significant differences were observed for all the parameters. Mean values for genotypes ranged between 161.3 to 167.3 for days to maturity, 9.57 to 12.86 cm for spike length, 15.13 to 19.93 for no. of spikelets per spike, 41.05 to 60.80 grains spike -1 , 2.47 to 3.61g for spike weight and 0.531 to 0.675 for spike density. Spike density was positive and highly significantly correlated with spike length, positive significant correlated with days to maturity, negative highly significantly correlated with spikelets spike -1 . Based on the results of this study MPT7 can be recommended to be used in further breeding programs as it has high spike length, spikelets spike -1 , grains spike -1 , spike weight and spike density.