Rakhshan, New Bread Wheat Cultivar, with High Grain Yield Potential, Resistance to Wheat Rusts and Good Bread Making Quality and Suitable for Irrigated Conditions in Temperate Agro-climatic Zone of Iran

A breeding hexaploid wheat line named later Rakhshan was introduced to Iran through the CIMMYT 41th-IBWSN international nursery with pedigree of " SHARP/3/PRL/SARA//TSI/VEE#5/5/VEE/LIRA//BOW/3/BCN/4/KAUZ " in 2008. This line showed average grain yield of 9019 kg/ha compared to check cultivars Pishtaz, Shiraz, Marvdasht and Bahar average with 9060 kg/ha in Karaj, Kermanshah and Zarghan during 2008-09 crop season. This genotype showed grain yield of 8710 kg/ha compared to 7910 kg/ha of four check cultivars: Parsi, Sivand, Bahar and Pishtaz in Karaj, Zarghan, Neishabour, Isfahan and Islam Abad-Gharb during 2009-10. This line was tested in advanced and replicated trials over same 5 locations at 2010-2011 with recorded grain yield of more than 7 t/ha and measured good bread making quality. The adaptation and stability of this line was evaluated in a 2 years' experiment tested over 8 stations during 2011-13 period which recorded grain yield of 7.695 t/ha against 7.582 of Parsi and 7.547 t/ha of Sivand. During testing of this variety under on-farm and demonstrational trials in farmer fields during 2013-15 over several locations of temperate zone under normal irrigation conditions, average grain yield of 8.233 t/ha against 7.734 t/ha of Parsi cultivar was recorded. It showed also potential of 10.116 and 11.290 t/ha grain yields in Kermanshah and Alborz provinces respectively. According to the final investigations, reaction of Rakhshan to yellow rust and leaf rust was recorded as 0 to 30MS in the inoculated nurseries. In case of stem rust race Ug99 reaction was 40MR in Kenya. Bread making quality of this variety is good and it is relatively an early maturity variety.