Performance of Durum Wheat Genotypes under Drought and TerminalHeat Stress Conditions in Changing Climatic Conditions

Durum wheat (Triticum durum L.), is an economically important crop, contributing in human nutrient and numerous past food products hence is of great commercial importance. Its production is restricted due to multiple environmental stresses i.e., drought and heat stress. Here comparative analysis of durum wheat varieties such as MACS 3125, HI 8627, DBP 02-08 and IWP 5013 was done by studying physiological, yield and yield contributing traits to evaluated their performance under stress conditions during late sown conditions. The study showed that there is significant difference in yield and yield contributing traits i.e., grain yield/plant, 1000 grain weight, biomass/plant, number of tiller/plant, sedimentation value and total carotene content in stress tolerant and sensitive genotypes. In addition, it was observed that physiological traits like canopy temperature, Chlorophyll (Chl)-a fluorescence and root coring could be used as stress markers in field conditions to screen stress tolerant and sensitive wheat genotypes under adverse conditions. This finding suggests that durum wheat genotypes are found to differ in their ability to respond to drought and high temperature, thereby tolerance durum genotypes could be useful as genetic stock to develop wheat tolerant varieties in breeding programs. In addition there is significant difference in traits like canopy temperature, Chl-a fluorescence and root coring in stress tolerant and sensitive genotypes. This suggests that these parameters can prove to be reliable parameters to assess stress tolerance.