Screening of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes under drought stress conditions using multivariate analysis

Drought is a serious global problem of agriculture. For this, an investigation was carried out with 25 wheat genotypes composed of cultivars and advanced lines to screen drought-tolerant bread wheat genotypes using multivariate analysis. The experiment was conducted in a split plot design with three replications and two treatments control and drought. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes and treatments for all the characters studied, viz. plant height, flag leaf collar height, flag leaf length, flag leaf breadth, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, proline content, number of tillers per plant, root fresh weight, shoot fresh weight and root-shoot ratio. High heritability was observed for all the traits except flag leaf length, flag leaf breadth and number of tillers per plant. Based on the genetic distances, all the 25 genotypes were grouped into three different clusters. In control conditions, cluster number I contained most tolerant genotypes and under drought conditions, cluster number III contained most drought-tolerant genotypes. In biplot, the genotypes SATYN-24, BARI Gom-24 and SATYN-2 contributed positively and correlated with number of tillers per plant, shoot fresh weight, flag leaf breadth, proline content and plant height under drought conditions. The drought susceptibility index (DSI) indicated that the genotypes BARI Gom-24 and SATYN-9 exhibited a highly drought-tolerant genotype in the present investigation. These genotypes might carry genes for drought tolerance and may be useful for further drought tolerance breeding.