Abstract: Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important food crops cultivated in a wide range agro-ecologies of Ethiopia. Drought remains an ever-expanding problem that has adverse effects on growth and crop production globally, and demands integration of biotechnological and conventional approaches. Somaclonal variations induced by tissue culture can be used for improving drought tolerance of bread wheat. To evaluate drought tolerance, a factorial experiment using 5 levels of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 and 3 bread wheat genotypes was carried out in the tissue culture laboratory of Mekelle Agricultural Research Center. Highly significant effects were observed due to genotypes, PEG levels used and their interactions for traits such as regeneration percentage (PRP), shoot number (SN), shoot length (SL), root number per shoot (RPS) and root length (RL). This indicated the presence of genetic variability and differential responses of genotypes to PEG simulated drought. The results obtained from the mean comparisons of genotype by PEG interaction showed that increasing PEG concentration in the medium significantly reduced the above measured traits. The current study suggests that genotypes G3 (SHARP/3/PRL/SARA//TSI/VEE#5/5/VEE/ LIRA//BOW/ 3/BCN/4/KAUZ/ 6/HUBARA-5) and G2 (NESMA*2/14-2//2*SAFI-3/4/PASTOR//HXL7573/2*BAU/ 3/ WBLL1) were relatively drought tolerant genotypes, while genotype G1 (FLAG-6/ICARDA-SRRL-6) appeared to be drought sensitive at the highest level of PEG concentration.
Keywords: Callus, Drought stress, Leaf culture, PEG-6000, Regeneration.
Title: In vitro Evaluation of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes for Drought Tolerance
Author: Assefa Amare, Firew Mekbib, Wuletaw Tadesse
International Journal of Life Sciences Research
ISSN 2348-313X (Print), ISSN 2348-3148 (online)
Vol. 11, Issue 4, October 2023 - December 2023
Page No: 1-8
Research Publish Journals
Website: www.researchpublish.com
Published Date: 30-October-2023
