Evaluation of Bread Wheat Genotypes for Water Stress Tolerance Using Agronomic Traits

Water stress is one of the major environmental constraints on wheat grain yield worldwide. One way to overcome this limitation is to evolve genetically stress-tolerant wheat genotypes that produce sustainable grain yields in water-scarce conditions. A field experiment was carried out to investigate the genetic diversity of 34 advanced wheat genotypes (Triticum aestivum L.) and two commercial check varieties (Khirman and TD-1) for grain yield and yield-associated agronomic traits in moisture stress (MS) and well-watered (WW) conditions. Plants were grown in residual moisture in rice fallow land in rainfed conditions without supplementary irrigation, i.e., MS conditions, while two rounds of irrigations were applied for the WW control conditions. Analysis of variance indicated a highly significant (p