Physio-Morphological and Biochemical Trait-Based Evaluation of Ethiopian and Chinese Wheat Germplasm for Drought Tolerance at the Seedling Stage

For Ethiopia’s wheat production, drought is a major natural disaster. Exploration of drought-resistant varieties from bulk germplasm conserved in the gene bank paramount importance for breeding climate change-resilient modern cultivars. The present study was aimed at identifying best performing genotypes under non-stress and polyethylene glycol simulated (PEG) stress conditions growth chamber. Forty diverse Ethiopian bread durum cultivars along with three Chinese possessing strong resistance susceptibility were evaluated. After acclimation environment, seedlings imposed to severe (20% PEG6000), 15 seedling traits including photosynthetic free proline investigated. Our findings indicated that caused profound decline plant water consumption (83.0%), shoot fresh weight (64.9%), stomatal conductance (61.6%), root dry (55.2%), other investigated except length ratio content which showed significant increase stress. A positive correlation found between pigments both conditions. Proline exhibited negative most all non-significant association. result also wide range genetic variation (CV) ranging 3.23% 47.3%; highest (SDW) (47.3%) followed by (44.63%) (36.03%). Based on multivariate principal component biplot analysis average sum ranks (ASR), G12, G16 G25 identified as tolerant G6, G42, G4, G11, G9 bottom five sensitive. potential these offers further investigation molecular cellular level identify novel associated response.