Study of genetic diversity and grouping pattern bread wheat genotypes under water deficit- stress

IntroductionCrop yield products reduction due to abiotic stress is estimated at 51 to 82%. Most plants are exposed to environmental stresses, and water deficit is one of the most important non-abiotic stresses in limiting and producing crops around the world, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Plants have developed various strategies to cope with water deficit stress, including morpho-physiological and biochemical.Wheat is one of the most important crops in the world, which in 2020 had the highest area under cultivation at the rate of 221.33 million hectares (with a total production of 766.03 million tons) worldwide. In the same year in Iran, the area under wheat cultivation was 6.70 million hectares and its production was 16.75 million tons.Materials and methodsThe research was performed in research farm of Rainfed Agricultural Research Station Gachsaran, Iran, over 2020-2021 cropping years. In this study, 100 lines obtained from the landrace bread wheat of different origins from several continents and several countries were studied. The experiment was performed in a simple lattice design 10×10 with two replications and separately in two environmental conditions of stress and non-stress. The operation planting is done in January after conventional tillage implementation of the area by hand. The source of moisture supply for both rain fed (water deficit stress) and irrigation (no stress) test conditions was rainfall and sprinkler irrigation before the phonological stage of flowering (pollination (Zadocs scale 61)). Irrigation interruption was applied at the beginning of flowering in a stress environment (water deficit stress conditions) which continued until harvest, but the environment without stress in two times when wheat plants to early reproductive stage, flowering stages, and the beginning of grain filling (Grain paste stage (Zadocs scale 61-83)) Irrigation was performed. In this study, 16 morphological traits and grain yield were measured under both stress and non-stress conditions, including flag leaf length and width (cm), flag leaf pod length (cm), and flag leaf area (cm2), number of nodes and leaves per stem, internodes number, peduncle length (cm), plant height (cm), tiller number, fertile and infertile tillers of number, length of awn (cm), spike length (cm) and spike yield (g).Results and discussionThe results of the analysis of variance showed high and significant variability in both non-stress and deficit water stress. TRI 3492 was t