Impact of different sowing dates on yield and agronomic traits of wheat under arid and semi-arid conditions of Bannu Division

The impact of different sowing dates on wheat crop was tested in two seasons, Rabi 2021-22 and 2022-23 at Agricultural Research Station Serai Naurang (Bannu) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan to sort out optimum sowing date to get the required yield potential and the highest wheat production.Five sowing dates, 18 th -24 th October, 3 rd -9 th November, 18 th -24 th November, 2 nd -8 th November and 17 th -23 rd December were tested.Genotypes of wheat SN-005, SN -010, SN -013, SN -016, SN -017, SN-020, SN -022, Khaista -17 and Gulzar-2019 were used during this investigation.The study was concentrated on growth traits and yield parameters.The highest significant 1000 grains weight (49.50 grams), biological yield (23265kg ha -1 ) and grain yield (6874kg ha -1 ) was acquired by 1 st sowing date 18 th -24 th October (SD1).SD1 also got highly significant days to heading (113), days to maturity (170) and plant height (109.70 cm) as compared to all other treatments but at par result with 2 nd sowing date 3 rd -9 th November (SD2) and 3 rd sowing date 18 th -24 th November (SD3).SD2 and SD1 got highly significant tillers m -2 among all treatments but at par with one another.This research will help farmers to follow optimum date of sowing and frame updated production technology.Moreover, it will help agricultural scientists to evolve and develop genotypes of wheat to survive in the existing effects of climate change and pave ways to meet food security problem in the prevailing scenario of global warming.