Water Deficit Stress Tolerance in Some of Barley Genotypes and Landraces under Field Conditions

Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of water deficit stress on some agro-morphological and physiological traits of seven genotypes and five landraces of barley, a split plot experiment was conducted a completely randomized block design with four replications in 2011-2012 cropping season at experimental field of College of Agriculture, Payame Noor University of Center, West Azerbaijan, Iran. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among genotypes and landraces for all of the studied traits, and showed highly significant effects of water deficit stress on all the studied traits. Based on correlation analysis, all the characters included in the study except leaf temperature and number of grain per spike showed significant positive correlation with grain yield under both conditions. In terms of physiological characters high significant correlation coefficient was found between relative water content and grain yield under stress condition; however, high significant correlation coefficient observed between fluorescence chlorophyll and grain yield under non-stress condition. 1000-grain weight had negative correlation with all characters except leaf temperature under non-stress condition. However, this character had significant and positive correlation with fluorescence chlorophyll, relative water content, SPAD value, spike length, number of spike per plant under stress condition. Considering the grain yield potential ‘Naghadeh’, ‘Piranshahr’ and ‘Mahabad’ landraces together with ‘CW3117-77’ genotype were ranked as the superior group of drought tolerant barley. On the other hand, ‘Naghadeh’ landrace was identified as a barley landrace that could be grown under both normal and water deficit stress conditions with high grain yield.