Study of genetic variation and drought resistance in accessions of Agropyron elongatum by morphological traits and drought resistance indices

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate morphological and drought tolerance indices based on mean yield of 18 Agropyron elongatum accessions. Experiments were set up based on the randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications, in two environments (stress) and irrigated (non-stress) conditions. There was significant differences (p<0.05) between plant height and number of tillers. The tallest height with 123.09 cm belonged to accession 17 and the shortest height with 112.8 cm belonged to accession 14. The number of tiller ranged from 105.6 to 54.61 for genotype No.1 and No.13, respectively. Forage had significant (p<0.01) positive correlation with plant height (0.657) and tiller numbers (0.797). Last node distance had negative correlation with forage yield (-0.236), dry matter (-0.415), flag leaf length (-313) and number of tiller (-0.121). There was significant positive correlation (p<0.01) among mean productivity, harmonic mean and geometric mean productivity indices in stress and non-stress conditions. Based on Fernandez, model; genotypes 10, 14 and 15 as superior were located in A group. Coefficient of variation ranged from 5.91% to 29.1%. In these experiments on the based of all traits studied, the accessions number 1, 3, 8 and 9 were superior and the accessions number 13 and 14 showed weakest performance.

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