Investigation of Triticale and Wheat Performance under Dry Land Conditions on the Basis of Variations in Agronomic and Morphological Traits

Aims: Drought is the most important environmental stresses in arid and semi-arid regions worldwide. Triticale offers ample genetic variation for the improvement of its productivity under limited water conditions. In order to investigate triticale and wheat potential under dry land conditions, response of twenty five wheat, triticale (TRT) and rye genotypes was assayed by scoring agronomic and morphological traits in the field in 2013-2014 growing season.

Study Design: A randomized complete block design with three replications was used to evaluate response of genotypes to dry land farming. Four 3-m long rows with row spacing of 25­ cm were used for sowing seeds.

Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted at the Research Farm of the College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, during 2013-2014 growing season.

Methodology: Two types of traits consisted of morphological and yield related components were measured at the vegetative stage and grain set periods. The data were subjected to the analysis of variance, factor analysis and clustering methods. Descriptive statistics were also calculated.

Results: Two rye genotypes had lower awn length (AWL) compared with triticale and most of wheat genotypes. Grain number per spike ranged from 30.8 to 55.9 in triticale and from 27.0 to 36.8 in wheat. Triticale had higher harvest index (HI) than wheat. HI varied between 19.0% (in TRT826) and 38.0% (TRT825) in triticale. The magnitude of HI in wheat was from 15.6% to 28.1%. TRT816 (10.81 g) and TRT822 (9.48 g) had the highest and TRT804 (3.12 g) had the lowest grain yield (GY) among triticale genotypes. Wheat cultivars were more affected by drought stress condition and had considerably lower grain yield compared with triticale. The highest GY in wheat was found in Shahpasand (2.81 g) which was lower than GY in most of triticales. Results of factor analysis indicated that first factor that explained 39.3% of the total variation had high and positive coefficients for spike yield (SY), biological yield (BY) and grain yield. In cluster analysis, 25 genotypes were classified into 5 main groups. Highest BY, SY, GY and HI means were found in cluster 5. Overall, results showed that triticale performed better than wheat in view of harvest index, grain yield and its components. Results also showed that variations between genotypes are valuable for breeding programs under dry land conditions.