YIELDING ABILITY OF AN INTRODUCED GERMPLASM OF DURUM-WHEAT IN A SEMIARID ENVIRONMENT OF TUNISIA

Fifty-eight durum wheat cultivars were selected from the introduced germplasm from the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources (Japan) in 1990. The selected cultivars were grown in Tunisia under rainfed conditions and investigated on yield potential, number of seeds/spike and thousand kernel weight for evaluation of their genetic variations and breeding potential during the 1992/93 growing season. All characters showed relatively large standard deviations and coefficients of variations. Thus, this breeding material may be successfully used in Tunisian breeding programs targetting. specific goals. Some cultivars performed similar to the most commonly grown local cultivars which were included in the experiment as cheeks. Selection was applied in order to select the best genotypes, Compared to the checks and based on yielding ability, 17 promising lines were identified.