Evaluation of Wheat Genotypes for Drought Tolerance : Effects of Soil Moisture Stress on Growth, Yield and Yield Contributing Characters of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

The present investigation was carried out with an aim to studying some physio-morphological characters of wheat associated with yield under different soil moisture stress. The soil moisture stress as a whole reduced the yield and yield contributing characters of wheat. Correlation analysis of grain yield with yield attributing characters indicated a high positive correlation coefficient with total dry matter, crop growth rate, leaf number/plant, harvest index, spikelet number/spike and 1000 kernel weight. Growth analysis showed that both crown root initiation and heading stages were the critical and care is needed at these stages for better crop yield. However, heading stage was more critical. Stress study clearly showed that the varieties differed from one another in their tolerance to stress and among the varieties studied, Gaurab was comparatively least susceptible one while Aghrani was the highest highest susceptible. Phenotypic regression analysis also showed that Gaurab had unit regression slope with low stability value for grain yield/plant, fertile tiller number and 1000 kernel weight indicating its stability to varying soil moisture treatments.