Lately, due to the global warming, many wheat-growing regions of the world have been experiencing shortage of drought tolerant wheat varieties with high plasticity and yield, meeting the modem farming and environmental requirements. From this standpoint, Azerbaijan is not an exception, as large areas of this country are located in the moisture-deficient dryland zones. It is natural that breeding for high-yielding drought-tolerant varieties and study of some physiological-genetic traits associated with drought tolerance were and remain to be important in the Republic. Azerbaijani RI of Agriculture has been carrying out intensive research to identify genotypes with tolerance to the local environmental stresses. First of all, it is necessary to mention that drought resistance in wheat depends on a complex of many interacting and interconnected traits (Kumakov, 1980). Among them, a very important role belong to such traits as the daily dynamics of photosynthesis and dry biomass, which were investigated in our experiments along with grain yield. The purpose of the experiments was to determine dissimilarity of the specified features in the most drought-tolerant forms of wheat. The following wheat varieties were used as material ofthe study: durum wheats Girmizi Bugda (Red Wheat), Garaqilciq-2, and Barakatli-95; bread wheats Qiymatli-2/17 and Azamatli-95. Widely known drought-tolerant variety Saratov-29 was used as the check. The work was carried out on an experimental field of RI of Agriculture, near Baku. The trial was planted in the fall and consisted of two treatments. In the first treatment, the experimental plants were watered twice during the vegetation period. The plants of the 2nd treatment were not artificially irrigated. Planting was done on 2mx 1 m plots. Dry biomass and daily dynamics of photosynthesis were studied on 3 different organs (the stem, leaf, and spike ), beginning from the 2nd decade of March. and until the 2nd decade of June, with 1-day intervals. Results of the experiments demonstrate that values of the investigated traits almost in all trial varieties were higher for the variant with irrigation versus the variant without irrigation. The biggest difference was observed in the later months (April- June ), when the plants of the 2nd variant experienced sharp deficit of moisture. In the 2nd variant, in comparison of the yield values with that of check Saratovskaya-29, it was found that almost all local varieties exceeded the check by 11% (Red Wheat) -20% (Barakatli-95). Values of the other two traits also appeared to be much higher than those of the check. The data provides evidence that it is possible to use the studied varieties as donors of drought-tolerance. Currently, these varieties and hybrid plants developed through their crosses are being widely studied in Qobustan.

English

0407|AGRIS 0401|AL-Wheat Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection