EFFECT OF DIFFERENT IRRIGATED CONDITIONS ON SOME MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS OF WHEAT GENOTYPES GROWN IN SAUDI ARABIA

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia being one of the driest countries globally needs drought tolerant wheat varieties. Breeding studies were conducted to determine the effects of different irrigation levels on some morphological traits of 4 wheat varieties. A pot-house experiment was conducted in split plot design using two different irrigations (well-watered and partial moisture stress) levels. Presently, the study was laid on different traits viz. plant height (cm), tiller number/plant, number of leaves/plant, leaf length (cm), flowering time (days), maturity time (days), 1000-grain weight (g) and grain yield/plant (g). The mean square from pooled analysis of variance revealed that the genotypes, treatments and genotype x treatment interaction were highly significant (p>0.05) for the traits leaf length, plant height, maturity time, 1000-grain weight, grain yield per plot; however, number of leaves, number of tillers/plant, flowering time and 1000-grain weight showed non-significant difference. Similarly, genotype x reading interaction was also highly significant (p>0.05) leaf length, number of tillers per plant and plant height. The varieties Nukrat Zahran, Samrra Najran and Halba Najran and showed better performance for grain yield and maximum 1000-grain weight under both environments. Plant height showed highly significant positive correlation with number of leaves per plant and number of tillers per plant. At partial stress, 1000-grain weight showed highly significant (p>0.01) correlation (r=0.8608***) with grain yield and maturity time (r=0.9948***). The knowledge obtained through this research will be helpful while selection of best varieties with better tolerance to environmental stresses.