Screening some Elymuspertenuisaccessions on drought tolerance under controlled conditions

ABSTRACT: This study was carried out to examine the effects of water deficit stress on growth characteristics of seedlings for the accessions of Elymuspertenuisin Fars research center for agriculture and natural resources (Shiraz, Iran). Accessions of Elymuspertenuisspecies (#9) were selected from Research Institute of Forest and Rangelands Gene bank and were planted in a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with three replications. Drought stress levels were 100, 75, 50 and 25% of field capacity and the measured characteristics were length of the root and shoot, fresh and dry weight of them. There were statistically significant differences between drought treatments, genotypes and interaction effects of accessions with land, in the all of above characteristics. Analysis of the principal components indicated that the special amounts of components 1 and 2 were 3.87 and 1.42 respectively, which in whole it considered 88% of total variance of variable parameters. Cluster analysis in Wardʹs model showed that by cutting of Dendrogram in 5.20 Euclidean distances, the accessions were divided into two clusters. According to the results from the assessment of accessions in drought conditions, the Asadabad and Pashalki accessions were recognized as the best and the weakest ones, respectively.