Identification and Characterization of Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) for Waterlogging Tolerance in Bread Wheat

Abstract

Waterlogging is an abiotic stress affecting wheat yields throughout the world, under climate change era and thus inbuilt tolerance will be an effective and economical approach. The aim was to identify the promising genotypes from recombinant inbred line (RILs) populations based on specific traits contributing to waterlogging tolerance for sustaining wheat yields. 340 RILs were developed by using a known source for waterlogging tolerance (BH 1146) and a high yielding wide adapted variety (DBW17) using single seed decent (SSD) method up to 7 generation of recombination cycles. The experiment was conducted using augmented block design under normal and waterlogging conditions. The waterlogging condition was created at four important growth stages viz., seedling, tillering, reproductive and grain-filling stage by stagnating water for one week in waterlogging experiment. The traits viz., plant height, tillers number per meter, spike weight, 1000-grain weight, biological yield and harvest index exhibited significant and positive correlation with grain yield under waterlogging, indicating that these traits contributed significantly towards grain yield under waterlogging condition. Twelve lines (SSD-06, SSD -15, SSD-17, SSD-24, SSD-28, SSD-94, SSD-99, SSD-130, SSD-134, SSD-245, SSD-253 and SSD-264) were selected based on high mean and least reduction percent for grain yield, biological yield, and 1000-grain weight. Similarly, 05 lines (SSD-27, SSD-30, SSD-80, SSD-130 and SSD-303) were most promising lines for grain yield, biological yield, and tillers per meter over the superior check. The selected RILs could be used as donors in hybridization programme in future for enhancing tolerance in wheat cultivars for waterlogging stressed environments.