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Wheat Information Service
Number 80: 6 - 11 (1995)


Genotype x environmental interactions in some Indian rainfed varieties of bread wheat under salt stress conditions.

K.N. Singh and Ravish Chatrath

Division of Crop Improvement, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal 132 001, India

Summary

The objective of this study was to assess the genotype-environment interactions and the stability of fifteen Indian rainfed wheat varieties under varied salt stress environments, viz., two levels of salinity, and two levels of alkalinity along with a normal level. The results showed the existence of high linear interactions for grain yield, number of grains per ear, 1000 grain weight and number of ear-bearing tillers per plant. Varieties Hybrid 65 and PBW 65 proved to be high yielding and stable over the environments tested. Hybrid 65 also exhibited higher and stable performance for number of grains per ear and grain weight.


Introduction

Certain drought tolerant wheat cultivars, are also known to show a high tolerance to salt stress (Mozafar and Goodin 1986). This is attributed to the fact that osmotic (physiological drought) effect and/or specific ion effect are among the mechanisms presently held responsible for the overall salt injury in plants. It is also known from the earlier studies that wheat genotypes respond differentially to varying salt stress (Rana 1978: Singh and Rana 1984). Thus it is necessary to identify high-yielding stable varieties under such conditions. Considering this, the present study was conducted to study the G x E interactions of some popular rainfed wheat varieties as well as to screen the stable genotypes under salt stress conditions.


Materials and methods

Fifteen rainfed wheat varieties (Table 2) were grown during the winter season of 1991-92. They were planted with two replications, each, in five diverse environments, viz., normal soil, two levels of saline water irrigation conditions (ECiw 20 dSm-1 and 30 dSm-1) and two levels of alkali soils (pH2 9.2 and 9.4). These stress environments were settled to represent the actual field conditions wherein salinity and alkalinity as well as normal condition occur in patches. The experiment was laid out in a split plot design, with five edaphic environments in two replicated main plots and 15 rainfed wheat varieties in the subplots. Each variety was planted in single row of 80 cm with row distance of 23 cm. An effective row length of 50 cm was harvested for evaluating grain yield and number of ear-bearing tillers. Number of grains per ear and 1000 grain weight were evaluated for 10 randomly selected ear samples from the 50 cm row. Plot means were used for the stability analysis as proposed by Eberhart and Russell (1966).

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