Identification of Heat Tolerant Genetic Sources in Bread Wheat Germplasm

Terminal heat stress has been recognized as the most widespread and detrimental type of heat stress in the world. In southern regions of Iran like Khuzestan, delay in planting date causes pollination and grain filling stages to be exposed to high temperatures, resulting in yield reduction. Developing heat tolerant cultivars is one of the ways to deal with heat stress. In this study, to identify resources of heat tolerance in wheat germplasm, a total of 203 bread wheat accessions with three control cultivars were planted in normal and delayed planting dates as an augmented experimental design in Ahwaz and the agronomic traits were evaluated. The results showed that almost all the evaluated traits were reduced in heat stress conditions compared to normal conditions. In both normal and heat stress conditions, some superior accessions were identified in terms of the studied traits compared to the control cultivars. In the biplot based on the principal components under heat stress conditions, 64 accessions along with control cultivars were located in the area of superior characteristics in terms of grain weight of five spikes, number of florets per spike, number of grains per spike, number of spikelets per spike, spike length and plant height. The studied accessions were divided into five groups by cluster analysis. The results showed a high diversity in the studied genetic material and the accessions superior to the control cultivars in terms of the studied traits were identified which can be used in future breeding programs.