Assessment of agro-physiological traits for identifying drought-tolerant durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) genotypes under rainfed conditions

Breeders are focused on developing high-yielding genotypes that can grow in semi-arid regions under water stress. A field experiment was conducted during the 2020 to 2021 cropping season at the experimental field of ITGC, Setif. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of durum wheat genotypes for agronomic traits growing under semi-arid conditions. The 10 genotypes evaluated were grown in a randomized block with three replications. Analysis of variance showed that the genotype effect was significant for most parameters studied. The best grain yield was recorded for genotypes G3 (3.52 t ha-1) G2 (3.48 t ha-1), and G5 (2.89 t ha-1); thus, they maintained the highest water content (81.09, 84.95, and 84.34%, respectively) and lower temperatures under these conditions. Simple linear regression showed that grain yield correlated positively with the number of spikes, and the number of grains per spike. The principal component (PC) analysis classified both genotypes G2 and G3 as high grain yielding genotypes; by contrast, genotypes Jupare C 2001, Bouatleb, and G1 were low-yielding.