Effective selection criteria for high-throughput wheat drought tolerance screening using integrated physiological and statistical approaches
摘要
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a widely grown staple crop, yet its yield is greatly influenced by adverse climate conditions, especially drought stress. As a result, the development of cultivars that can withstand drought and maintain agronomic stability has emerged as a primary goal in wheat breeding initiatives. The complex interaction between genotype and environment challenges identifying stable genotypes through conventional approaches. As a result, the current study consists of 480 wheat genotypes evaluated using four yield traits, two physiological and six yield-based stress indicators, followed by multivariate analysis for tolerance and sensitivity towards post-anthesis drought. The drought significantly affected all important traits, especially reported 42.2% reduction in average grain yield. The variance analysis (ANOVA) and genetic variability analysis (GVA) showed substantial genetic diversity amongst the population and traits across the studied environments. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the three components had eigenvalues greater than one, accounting for 34.4%, 22.5%, and 14.8% of total variance, respectively. Amongst all traits, canopy temperature at flowering (CTFL) and grain filling (CTGF), harvest index (HI), grain yield (GY) and biomass (BM) showed the highest contribution in the first two principal components (PCs). Further comprehensive performance value (D value) obtained from the collective performance of multiple traits ranked G239 (IC75242), G29 (IC532880), G56 (IC564138), G42 (IC372745), and G145 (IC416408) as the top five superior genotypes. Similarly, the multi-trait genotype ideotype distance index (MGIDI) selected 48 best-performing genotypes; amongst them, G139 (IC416026), G145 (IC416408), G136 (IC415955), G152 (IC443750), and G153 (IC443767) ranked in the top five. An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of selected genotypes demonstrated the impact of each factor or combination of traits that influence selection. This investigation highlighted the significance of multi-trait field evaluation, the MGIDI index, and stress indices, accompanied by statistical interpretation for accurately selecting drought-tolerant genotypes.