Canopy Temperature and Yield Based Selection of Wheat Genotypes for Water Deficit Environment

The experiment was conducted with thirty-five wheat genotypes at the research field of the Department of Agronomy of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University from November 2011 to March 2012 to screen out the wheat genotypes for drought tolerance of thirty-five wheat genotypes under water deficit condition. The experiment was carried out in a split- plot design comprising two water regimes in main plot and thirty-five wheat genotypes were placed randomly in sub-plot with three replications. From this experiment, it was found that water deficit condition severely reduced the plant height, number of effective tillers m^﹣2, spike length, number of spikelets spike^﹣1, number of grains spike^﹣1 and thousand grain weight. Based on the percentage of yield reduction, the genotypes BARI Wheat 26, Sourav, BAW 1169 and BAW 1158 were categorized in tolerant group exhibited low yield reduction (>30%) and the genotypes Seri, Pavon, BAW 1166, BAW 1167, BAW 1171 and BAW 1173 were ranked in susceptible group due to very low yielding ability with high yield reduction which ranged from 50.01% to 59.17% in water deficit condition. The maximum increased canopy temperature was recorded in the genotypes BAW 1166, BAW 1167, Seri, Pavon and BARI Wheat 25. The minimum was in the genotypes BARI Wheat 26, BAW 1157, Sourav, BAW 1169 and Gourab. The highest MP, GMP and STI values were recorded in the genotypes BARI Wheat 26, BAW 1158, Sourav, BAW 1169 and BAW 1170. Our results revealed that BARI Wheat 26, BAW 1158, Sourav, BAW 1169 and BAW 1170 were more capable to tolerate water deficit condition.