EARLY GROWTH RESPONSE OF SIX WHEAT VARIETIES UNDER ARTIFICIAL OSMOTIC STRESS CONDITION

An experiment was carried out under laboratory conditions where seeds of six wheat varieties (Damani, Hashim-8, Gomal-8, DN-73, Zam-04 and Dera-98) were raised in Petri dishes and were either treated with distilled water (control) or 15% polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 solution. Seeds were treated with 15% PEG solution to establish an artificial osmotic stress condition (water stress) and observe its effect on germination percentage, coleoptile length, shoot and root length, fresh weight of shoot and root. A significant difference (P 0.05) was recorded between varietal and treatment means regarding all traits. Variety Hashim-8 gave maximum germination percentage (93.33%) whereas maximum coleoptile (1.78cm) and shoot length (5.77cm) was observed in variety DN-73 which was statistically at par with variety Hashim-8. Similarly, root length (3.63g), fresh shoot (0.15g) and root weight (0.12g) was maximum in variety Dera-98 which was statistically at par with variety Hashim-8. A second experiment was carried out under glasshouse environment where plants were treated with nonstress (100% field capacity) and water stress (35% field capacity) treatments. Although total grain yield was significantly (P 0.05) reduced in all six wheat varieties when grown in water stress condition however Hashim-8 showed the lowest reduction (13%) while Zam-04 showed the highest (32%). The outcome of both experiments indicated that these varieties have great potential to incorporate with the existing commercial wheat varieties in order to obtain high yield in water stress regions.