Performance of Wheat Genotypes for Grain Yield and its Attributes under Irrigation with Saline Water

A field experiment was conducted in randomized block design in 3 replications at agriculture research farm, Jagan Nath University Bahadurgarh, Haryana, India with 7 wheat varieties currently grown in northern India to evaluate the impact of saline irrigation water on the grain yield and its attributes. The soil is clay loam with EC 118 μS/cm and water from nearby  Bidhro  canal having pH 7.6 to 8.4 depending upon rainfall. The observations were recorded on five randomly selected plants in each replication for each genotype and the mean data for grain yield and its attributes: plant height, number of tillers per plant, number of ears per plant, number of spikelet's per plant, dry weight of 100 grains, dry weight of grains per ear, test weight and grain yield per plant were subjected to analysis of variance. The result revealed significant difference among wheat genotypes for grain yield and its attributes. Wheat variety HD-2967 was found superior for grain yield (8.46), number of tillers per plant (6.10), number of ears per plant (5.55), dry weight of grains per ears (7.00) whereas WH-1080 scored highest for plant height (78.0) and dry weight of 100 seeds(4.35) and WH-1105 scored highest for test weight(1.31). These genotypes may possess genes for salinity tolerance as evidenced by their performance in predominantly saline soil and water used. They should be included in direct cultivation in such environment as well as hybridization programme to develop recombinants possessing high grain yield and tolerance to salinity.