Ascertaining the Robust Drought Tolerant Wheat Germplasm for Sustainable Agriculture

This study aims to discover and assess how various wheat genotypes respond to abiotic stress, such as drought, which can result in considerable yield losses in wheat production.A serious global challenge to food security is the depletion of water resources brought on by excessive irrigation use and climate change.Therefore, this study was conducted using morphological characteristics to assess drought tolerance.To investigate wheat genotypes' tolerance to drought.A total of 50 wheat genotypes were sown in the field using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with 3 replications of normal and drought stress conditions.Principal component analysis (PCA), genotypic and phenotypic associations, analysis of variance, and reduction percentage computation were all used in this investigation.Results showed that significant variability was present.Based on the performance, there were notable differences in the number of tillers, plant height, chlorophyll content, number of spikelets per spike, peduncle length, flag leaf area, biomass, main spike weight, main spike grain weight, yield per plant, and thousand-grain weight.A significant positive link between grain yield, thousand-grain weight, and the number of grains per spike was found using correlation analysis.The five genotypes G7, G16, G24, G38, and G45 fared well, while the genotypes G11, G23, G32, G41, and G49 did poorly.Out of 12 principal components (PCs), the first five PCs showed significant genetic variation under both conditions.The first five PCs showed 0.75% and 0.72% cumulative genetic variation under normal and drought conditions, respectively.Other characters' performances were improved by the selection made based on these characteristics.According to the results, the highest performing germplasm under drought stress may be a desirable genotype for upcoming breeding projects and early selection criteria for producing high yields.