Flag leaf Reflectance Efficiency as Indicator for Drought Tolerance in Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) Under Semi Arid Conditions

The present study was led on the experimental site of ITGC (Technical Institute of Field Crops) station of Setif, Algeria during two cropping seasons (2010/2011 and 2011/2012). This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of using Mesurim Pro (Version 3.3) software in the measure of the reflectance at Red (654 nm) and Blue (450 nm) (RB) wavelengths, and to investigate the spectral behavior of the relationship between reflectance at RB, Grain yield, Senescence parameters and Chlorophyll content in set of durum wheat genotypes and evaluate the relationships between drought resistance indices and reflectance at Red and Blue. The reflectance is measured using the numerical image analyses (NIA). The results of the present study indicated that the two different conditions of growth (stress and irrigated conditions) had different considerable effects on all traits tested during the two cropping seasons. The best negative and significant correlation between flag leaf reflectance at Red, Blue, Grain yield and drought resistance indices suggest the efficiency of using the reflectance for the predicting of grain yield and screen tolerant genotypes in durum wheat. In addition, the best correlation between leaf reflectance and senescence parameters suggest that the genotypes with slow senescence have low values of leaf reflectance. All this results prove the efficiency of using Flag leaf reflectance at Red and Blue as suitable tool for screening in durum wheat cultivars for high grain yield and under drought condition.