Morphological, Physiological, and Biochemical Characterization of Drought-Tolerant Wheat (Triticum spp.) Varieties

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops and extensively cultivated in wide ranges of altitudes in Ethiopia. With an alarming population growth in the era of climatic change, there is a need for further crop improvement for sustainable production. In this regard, the study was carried out at the Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center (KARC) in a rainout shelter to investigate the responses of durum and bread wheat varieties to soil water stress in terms of selected morphological, physiological, and biochemical parameters. The 2 factors were combined factorially and arranged in a randomized complete block design with 3 replications. The 12 wheat varieties, 6 bread wheat and other 6 durum wheat, were sown in pots under well-watered (100% field capacity) and water-stressed (30% field capacity) conditions. Results revealed that water stress resulted in 26%, 9%, 23%, 16%, and 11% reductions in plant height, spike length, number of spikelets spike−1, relative water, and chlorophyll contents, respectively. The tested wheat varieties under water stress produced 28% and 6% more proline content and total soluble sugar, respectively, as mitigation strategies against drought. Results further exhibited that wheat varieties significantly differed in all of the measured traits except for the plant height and relative water content. The present study verified that the biochemical parameters needs to be considered as better traits to select wheat (Triticum spp.) varieties for drought tolerance under water stress conditions.

The opportunity of using durum wheat landraces to tolerate drought stress: screening morpho-physiological components

“…Various studies described the trend of changes in morphological, physiological and biochemical traits ( Boussakouran et al ., 2019 ; Jallouli et al ., 2019 ; Othmani et al ., 2019 ; Pour-Aboughadareh et al ., 2020 ; Gholamin and Khayatnezhad, 2020 ; Ayed et al ., 2021 ; Tefera et al ., 2021 ; Quagliata et al ., 2023 ). Drought negatively affects plant morphological and physiological functions such as biomass, shoot and root growth ( Al-Maskri et al ., 2016 ; Widuri et al ., 2018 ).…”

Study of the genetic variability of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) in the face of combined stress: water and heat

“…Several physiological, morphological, and biochemical criteria have thus been identified ( Benkadja et al 2022 ). Proline and soluble sugar accumulation, vegetative growth, and photosynthetic efficiency have been considered as tolerance criteria ( Boussakouran et al 2019 ; Jallouli et al 2019 ; Othmani et al 2019 ; Gholamin and Khayatnezhad 2020 ; Pour-Aboughadareh et al 2020 ; Ayed et al 2021 ; Tefera et al 2021 ; Chaouachi et al . 2023 ; Quagliata et al 2023 ).…”

SCoT, ISSR, and SDS-PAGE Investigation of Genetic Diversity in Several Egyptian Wheat Genotypes under Normal and Drought Conditions

“…e majority of efforts to improve drought-tolerant wheat cultivars have focused on yieldenhancing morphological characteristics [11,12], with less emphasis on biochemical, physiological, and molecular characteristics. Agronomic and morphological data have been extensively used to screen wheat varieties for resistance to stress, such as salinity, and drought [13][14][15][16]. Nonetheless, morphological measurements alone are inadequate for the genetic identification of wheat cultivars/lines.…”