Phenotypic diversity studies for terminal drought response in emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum L.)

H. B.   SHARADA; G.   UDAY

H. B. SHARADA Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, DharwadUniversity of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, Karnataka, India
G. UDAY Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, DharwadUniversity of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, Karnataka, India

Keywords: Emmer wheat, Phenotypic diversity, Spikelet, Terminal drought

Abstract

The present study was carried out to assess the phenotypic diversity in seventy dicoccum wheat germplasmlines under terminal drought stress and non-stress conditions atAll India Coordinated Research Project, University ofAgricultural Sciences, Dharwad during rabi 2020-21 season. Results of multivariate analysis revealed that the number oftillers per meter and number of spikelets per spike were highly influencing grain yield under stress conditions.A clusteringanalysis based on agro-morphological traits indicated a good level of genetic diversity among germplasm. Most yield andyield-attributing characteristics showed a significant decrease in mean performance under stress conditions. Droughttolerant germplasm lines were classified based on Stress Susceptibility Index (SSI) and Stress Tolerance Index (STI). Amongthe seventy dicoccum germplasm lines DDK-50378 showed good SSI with 0.21. Twenty germplasm lines performed betterwith STI (>0.9). The germplasm lines DDK-50341, DDK-50380, and DDK-50381 produced better yield under moisturestress than the top yielding standard check DDK 1025. Under normal conditions these genotypes proven to be promisingand carry genes for drought tolerance and further utilized for drought tolerance breeding