| Summary: | Drought stress is the most important factor restricting crop production in
the majority of agricultural fields in the world. Durum wheat is generally
grown in arid and semi-arid areas and drought often causes serious problems
in its production. Fourteen durum wheat genotypes were evaluated under
semi-arid Mediterranean climatic conditions in two non-stressed and
water-stressed conditions. Data on fourteen agronomic traits are presented to
assess the phenotypic diversity and to investigate the relationships between
grain yield and other important yield components in durum wheat. The
coefficient of variation (CV) for all the genotypes ranged from 0.71% to
17.62% in non-stressed environment and ranged from 1.38% to 23.70% in
water-stressed environment. Clustering based on durum wheat genotypes
separated the measured traits into three main groups under non-stressed
environment. Peduncle length, agronomic score and plant height were the most
related traits with grain yield. Such clustering in water-stressed
environment indicated that growth vigor, thousand kernel weight, test weight
or hectoliter and agronomic score were the most associated traits with grain
yield. Cluster analysis assigned the durum wheat genotypes to at least two
major groups in non-stressed conditions and three major groups in
water-stressed conditions. Therefore, it seems that for improving grain yield
performance in non-stressed conditions, genotypes G1, G3, G4, G6, G8 and G13
and in water-stressed conditions, genotypes G3, G8, G10 and G14 are good
candidates. Finally, for improving grain yield performance in both humidity
conditions, genotypes G3 and G8 can be used.
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