Revista Europea de Biología Experimental Acceso abierto

Abstracto

Introduction of a new selection index for improvement of drought tolerance in common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Ezatollah Farshadfar, Saeide Jalali and Mohsen Saeidi

In order to select drought tolerant wheat genotypes, an experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications under two different rainfed and irrigated conditions during the growing season 2010-2011. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that integrated selection index (ISI) was correlated with chlorophyll a (Chl a), chlorophyll b (Chl b), chlorophyll total (Chl T), relative chlorophyll content (RCC), relative water content (RWC), proline concentration (PC) and excised leaf water retention (ELWR) indicating that these screening techniques can be useful for selecting drought tolerant genotypes. Screening drought tolerant genotypes using mean rank, standard deviation of ranks and rank sum discriminated genotypes (18), (11) and (15) as the most drought tolerant. Therefore, they are recommended to be used as parents for genetic analysis, gene mapping and improvement of drought tolerance in common wheat.