Assessment of physiological traits associated with yield improvement in wheat (Triticum durum)‎ under rainfed conditions

Abstract EN

The current study aims at associating yield and yield parameters with physiological traits (membrane stability index, relative water content, chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence) of three wheat varieties grown in Southern Syria under 400 mm and 291 mm annual rainfall at different stages of plant growth.

Modern durum wheat variety (douma3) showed the best performance for all physiological traits tested and the highest yield and yield components compared to intermediate (sham3) and old variety (hourani).

Douma3 performed better than the other two varieties especially at low rainfall zone (291 mm) and this was associated with higher values of membrane stability.

The study proved that yield improvement in modern wheat varieties relied on improvement of physiological performance particularly under water deficit condition.