GENETIC INSIGHTS INTO DROUGHT TOLERANCE OF BREAD WHEAT GENOTYPES AT THE SEEDLING STAGE

Current water scarcity in different parts of the world has drastically affected the yield of different cultivated crops, including wheat. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the drought tolerance of various bread wheat genotypes at the seedling stage. One hundred bread wheat genotypes were evaluated under controlled drought conditions using Poly Ethylene Glycol-6000 (PEG-6000) in a complete randomized design (CRD) with three replicates. Analysis of variance showed that there was significant variation among all the evaluated genotypes. In both normal and drought conditions, the trait root to shoot ratio had the highest value of genotypic correlation with root length (0.94**, 0.94**), followed by relative water content (0.72**, 0.76**) and the association of relative water content with root to shoot ratio (0.68**, 0.69**); thus, it can be concluded that the variation among the traits is due to the genetic effect rather than environmental interaction. For mean performance, the genotypes were screened and evaluated based on their performance under both normal and drought conditions: G20, followed by G15, G90, G35, G43, G25, G44, and G45 performed well, while the genotypes that performed worst were G82, G42, G76, and G86. All traits exhibited high heritability with a high genetic advancement percentage, except for relative water content. These results signify the role of attributes in regulating the drought response of plants and suggest that the selection of best-performing traits helps to improve plant growth under water stress. The development of such cultivars that are tolerant to drought could be used to overcome food shortage where limited water is available.