Evaluation of Water Deficit Stress Effects on Morpho-Physiologicall Characteristics in Some Triticale Genotypes

Among the crops, cereals have been special important and triticale is the most successful man made cereal. In present research, water deficit stress effects on 19 triticale genotypes (X Triticosecale wittmack) and two wheat cultivars (Triticum aestivum), Shiraz (sensitive to water deficit stress) and Kavir (tolerant to water deficit stress) were tested. Therefore, two separate field experiments were performed based on Randomized Complete Block Design with 3 replications. In the first experiment, normal irrigation was used and in the second experiment irrigation has been eliminated at flowering step. Vegetative and yield component triats such as plant height, spike length, number of spikelets per spike, grains per spike, tiller number in plant, thousand grain weight, biological yield and grain yield were measured. Relative water content (RWC) and rate of leaf water loss (RWL) and total chlorophyll content as physiological traits were evaluated. Results showed that although water deficit stress decreased grain yield in different genotypes in comparison of normal irrigation, some genotypes tolerated water deficit stress and produced relatively high yield. Genotype ELTCC1 showed superior in thousand grain weight and number of spikelets per spike in normal irrigation condition and biological yield, grain yield, grains per spike and plant height in stress condition. Overall, we can introduce ELTCC1 and ELTCC15 genotypes as desired genotypes, because they showed more tolerance in comparison with other genotypes based on tolerance and susceptible indices and also yield in stress and normal irrigation conditions.