Morphological evaluation of wheat genotypes under simulated draught stress

Plant growth and productivity are greatly affected by environmental stresses such as drought, high salinity and low temperature. Abiotic stresses, notably extremes in temperature, water deficiency and salinity frequently limits the growth and productivity of major crop species such as wheat. Drought can affect vegetative and reproductive stages. Therefore, understanding plants’ responses to drought at every life stage is crucial to progress in genetic engineering and breeding. The aim of this study was to evaluate the 20 Wheat germplasm at morphological level under imposed draught stress. An experiment was conducted on 20 wheat genotypes in a Randomized Complete Blocks Design (RCBD) with three replicates under normal and terminal drought stress conditions conditions at laboratory of Department of Agriculture Biotechnology, S.V.P.U&T Meerut, India during rabi cropping seasons 2014–15 and 2015–16. According to the study of drought can reduce leafarea which can consequently lessen photosynthesis. Thus, on the basis of various morphological characters it is concluded that higher yield of K9351 and K1205 under non stress conditions might be on account of its higher yield potential. These genotypes exhibited higher yield under water stress owing to the existence of drought tolerance mechanism through better management of root shoot mechanism, leaf area and yield related characters. The results showed that induced draught stress significantly reduced their value with increasing stress level. However the germplasm K9351 and K1205 show very less effect of induced draught stress and maintained their yield potential even after the third level of stress condition. Therefore, these genotypes need to be utilized in future breeding program.