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AGRONOMIC EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT BREAD WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.) GENOTYPES FOR TERMINAL HEAT STRESS

MUHAMMAD IRFAQ KHAN, TILA MOHAMMAD, FAZLE SUBHAN, MUHAMAD AMIN AND SYED TARIQ SHAH

Abstract: A field experiment was conducted at Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Peshawar, to identify high yielding bread wheat genotypes against terminal heat stress in the central agro ecological zone of NWFP. The genotypes included in the trial were selected on the basis of yield performance and other agronomic characters under normal and late planting conditions from NIFA Observation Nursery (NON) sown during 2001-2002. For the confirmation of their desired traits the selected genotypes were again planted under the same sowing conditions during 2002-2003 using two different sowing dates as a separate factor. Statistical analysis of the data revealed that significant differences in days to heading, days to maturity, plant height, biological yield, spikes per m², 1000 grain weight (g), grain yield kg ha^-1 and hectolitre weight (kg) were observed for all the genotypes with respect to early and late sowing dates. The results indicated that the overall performance of the genotypes was the best with respect to normal sowing.  Though all the characters were negatively affected as a result of late sowing yet the genotypes CT-01217, CT-01222 and CT-01085 with grain yield of 4745, 4334 and 4334 kg ha^-1 respectively performed well with respect to harvest index (40.5, 31.0 and 36.5%) and medium plant height character (89, 92 and 91 cm) as compared to those of the best check line (Bakhtawar-92) which is an indication that some bread wheat genotypes among existing germplasm may have in built resistance/tolerance against terminal heat stress under late planting condition.

Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Tarnab, P.O. Box # 446, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Telephone# 092-91-2964060, Email: irfaqk@hotmail.com