Screening of maize genotypes for moisture stress tolerance

Abstract

Drought is an important environmental constraint that limits the productivity of cereals and affects both quality and quantity of yield. Field experiment was conducted at Main Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad during rabi/summer season 2013-14 to evaluate maize genotypes for moisture stress condition. The experiment was laid out in FRCBD with three replications consisting of 150 maize genotypes. Moisture stress significantly affected the morpho-physiological traits and finally the yield. The morpho-physiological traits like plant height, number of leaves leaf area and total dry matter accumulation. Bio-chemical traits viz., photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and yield were recorded significantly highest under the irrigated condition and lowest in the water stress conditions. The genotypes which performed better in both irrigated and stress situation was categorized as drought tolerant and the genotypes with poor performance were categorized as drought susceptible.