Morphological evaluation of wheat genotypes for grain yield under arid environment of Balochistan

Wheat is the most famous cereal crop in the world mainly used as a staple food for mankind. Drought is a leading environmental stress that restricts the productivity of wheat in water-scare regions. In this study, we evaluated the performance of 10 advanced lines and two commercial varieties for grain yield during 2018-19, at Balochistan Agriculture College, Quetta. Results revealed the highly significant differences between genotypes for number of days to heading, days to maturity, plant height at maturity (cm), number of fertile tillers plant-1, number of grains spike1, 1000-grain weight (g), grain yield plant-1 and grain yield (kg/ha), while significant (P > 0.05) for days to grain filling period. In addition, the principal component analysis indicated that first two principal components (PC1 and PC2) accounted for 83.77% of the total variation. The genotype BAC-51 performed superior for grain yield and other morphological traits, suggesting that BAC-51 should be tested at different locations in the upland of Balochistan and may be released as a drought-tolerant variety after the certification process.