Search

Wheat is a major staple food crop for food security in India and South Asia. The current rate (0.8–1.2%) of genetic gain in wheat is significantly shorter than the 2.4% needed to meet future demand. The changing climate and increased yield loss due to factors such as terminal heat stress necessitate the need for climate-resilient practices to sustain wheat production. At ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research in Karnal, Haryana, India, a new High Yield Potential Trial (HYPT) was conceptualized and subsequently conducted at six locations in the highly productive North Western Plain Zone (NWPZ). An attempt was made to harness higher wheat yields through the best pipeline genotypes suitable for early sowing and modified agronomic practices to explore the feasibility of a new approach that is profitable to farmers. The modified agronomic practices included like early sowing, application of 150% recommended dose of fertilizers, and two sprays of growth regulators (Chlormaquate chloride and Tebuconazole) to prevent lodging. The mean yield in the HYPT was 19.4% superior compared to the best trials conducted during the normal sowing time. A highly positive and significant correlation of grain yield with grain filling duration (0.51), biomass (0.73), harvest index (0.75), normalized difference vegetation Index (0.27), chlorophyll content index (0.32), and 1000-grain weight (0.62) was observed. An increased return of USD 201.95/ha was realized in the HYPT when compared to normal sowing conditions. This study proves that new integrated practices have the potential to provide the best profitable yields in wheat in the context of climate change.

The present study was carried out with an objective to investige genetic diversity in set of diverse wheat genotypes during 2018-19 at the experimental farm of Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal. Principal Component Analysis was carried out on this set of 440 genotypes to study variability for different agro-morphological and physiological traits. The coefficient of variation ranged from 7.20-38.30 for the measured traits. Yield per plot was positively related with tillers per m, spike length, grains per spike and 1000 grains weight. The first three principal components explained 45.66% of variation. Agglomerative clustering grouped the genotypes into six groups and had a cophenetic correlation coefficient of 0.319. Almost all the components explained some variation for each trait and hence can be further used in hybridization for creation of variability in the breeding programs to develop improved cultivars. This remarkable variation in the set can be accounted to the fact that these lines were a collection of germplasm from different wheat growing countries and also their specificity for different traits.

In this investigation 23 genotypes of wheat were tested for stability in 19 locations of North Western plains of the country, Yield data generated from the trials were analysed using AMMI analysis. The distribution of genotype by AMMI revealed that the genotypes 10,13, 20,12,15 and 14 scattered close to the origin, indicating minimal interaction of these genotypes with environments. Studied environments explained 57.2% of the total variation, whereas G and GxE captured 6.2% and 24.3%, respectively. First two principal components (PC1 and PC2) were used to create a 2-dimensional GGE biplot and explained 26.4% and 14.3% of GGE sum of squares (SS), respectively. Environments of Karnal, Ludhiana and Gurdaspur fall in same sector with genotypes 23 & 16. The spearman correlations calculated based on ranks by stability methods varied from positive value 0.97 to negative correlation of 0.759. The cultivar superiority estimate (Pi) maintained negative correlation with other estimates ranking.