Physiological, Morphological, Phenological and Yield Evaluation of Durum Wheat Lines Under Rainfed Conditions

Abstract

Food products of durum wheat play an important role in the world trade because it can be grown only in certain and limited regions of the world. The study aimed to assess some agronomic characteristics of 120 advanced durum wheat lines obtained from CIMMYT (The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas), APUTAEM (GAP International Agricultural Research and Training Center) and five control varieties (Artuklu, Eyyubi, Güneyyıldızı, Şahinbey and Zenit). Field trial was carried out in the experimental field of GAP International Agricultural Research Institute at Diyarbakır, Turkey, in 2015 – 2016 growing season. Experiment was conducted via augmented experimental design consisting of six blocks which has twenty five plots with five controls. The examined traits was traits was divided into groups at physiological (canopy temperature, flag leaf chlorophyll content, leaf area index at anthesis, grain filling duration and grain filling rate), phenological (plant emergence time, heading time, anthesis time and physiological maturity time), morphological (leaf glaucusness, leaf erectness, plant height and spike length) and yield – forming parameters (spike number, spikelet number, grain number, spike grain weight and grain yield). There was statistically significant difference between genotypes in all traits except canopy temperature. Correlation analysis showed a positive and significant correlation between yield and spike grain weight. As a result of the research, it was determined that 13 lines (5, 16, 18, 3, 34, 41, 42, 50, 52, 85, 92, 94 and 114) showing superior features than control cultivar in terms of different characteristics was selected and transferred to the advanced stages of breeding studies.

Keywords: Durum wheat, Yield, Augmented design, Diyarbakir

DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/6-04-05