EVALUATION OF SOME BREAD WHEAT GENOTYPES UNDER DIFFERENT ABIOTIC STRESSES

The current study was conducted at the Experimental Farm of Sakha Agricultural Research Station (31o06 N,30o 56 E) during the two growing seasons of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 to evaluate sixteen genotypes of bread wheat, such as ten promising lines from the local breeding program and six local cultivars, under normal, water deficit, and soil salinity conditions. The genotypes were arranged in three experiments representing the growing conditions. The used design was a randomized complete block design with four replications. Results appeared that there was significant decrease in all studied characters as result of water deficit and soil salinity conditions compared to the normal one, except 1000-kernel weight which increased under water deficit conditions. The effect of genotypes x growing conditions interaction was significant for days to heading, days to maturity and grain yield in both seasons while it was only significant in the 1st season for number of spikes m-2 and 1000-kerenl weight. The mean comparisons indicated that Line 7, Line 10 and Line 9 had moderate values of grain yield under both water deficit and soil salinity stresses with low grain yield reduction under those conditions. Therefore, Line 7, Line 10 and Line 9 may be applied in breeding program to generate new recombination with good soil salinity and water deficit tolerance characteristics. Meanwhile, the three cultivars; Misr 3, Sakha 95 and Giza 171 exhibited the highest grain yield under the three conditions with lowest grain yield reduction under both water deficit and soil salinity conditions indicating their good ability to tolerant difficult growing conditions. Therefore, these cultivars can recommend to be grown under water deficit or salt affected soil conditions. These results may be helpful to plan appropriate selection strategies to improve grain yield under water deficit and soil salinity in wheat crop in Egypt.