African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (8), pp. 971-975, 16 April 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Performance of wheat genotypes under osmotic stress at germination and early seedling growth stage

Muhammad Rauf¹*, Muhammad Munir¹, Mahmood ul Hassan¹, Munir Ahmad¹ and Muhammad Afzal²

¹Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

²Plant Genetic Resources Institute, NARC, Pakistan.

*Corresponding authors E-mail: rauf216@yahoo.com, phone: +92-333-6832604.

Accepted 14 July, 2006

Sixteen wheat genotypes including local varieties were tested in completely randomized design with three repeats. Data were recorded at four different moisture levels by using polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 on germination percentage, germination rate index, shoot length, root length, fresh weight of shoot, dry weight of shoot, fresh weight of root, dry weight of root, shoot/root ratio and analysed for significance. The genotypes differ significantly in response to the moisture stress. There were highly significant differences for all traits. PK-18199 gave the maximum germination percentage, germination rate index, shoot length root length, coleoptile length, fresh shoot weight, dry shoot weight, fresh root weight, dry root weight and root/shoot ratio under all four moisture stresses. PK-18175 showed maximum resistance against moisture stress while WAFAQ 2001 showed minimum resistance. AS-2002 and KC033 also gave the better performance under all four moisture levels for most of the traits at seedling stage. 99FJ03 gave maximum root/shoot length ratio while PK 18199 gave minimum value of root/shoot length ratio showing resistance against water stress.

Key words: Wheat genotypes, seedling traits, moisture stress, PEG-6000.