Abstract

To evaluate the genetic diversity in 140 bread wheat landraces along with six controls (Azar2, Fankang, Trakia, Siosson, Gaspard and Gascogne), an experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was carried out under drought stress condition in the Agricultural Research Station of Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran. Analysis of variance indicated that there were highly significant differences among the genotypes in all of the traits. There were significant correlations between yield and all of the studied traits. Principal components (PC) analysis showed that five components explained 69.3% of the total variation among traits. The first PC assigned 29% and the second PC assigned 15% and of total variation between traits. The first PC was more related to tiller numbers, fertile tillers, biological yield, grain yield and volume of seed plants. Therefore, selection based on first component is helpful for a good hybridization breeding program. A principal component biplot showed low distance between grain yield and biological yield, volume of seed, plant height and hectoliter. From this study, it was concluded that a good hybridization breeding program can be initiated by the selection of genotypes from the PC1.

Key words: Bread wheat, biplot, landrace, drought stress, agronomic traits.