January 31, 2009	Saturday	Safar 04, 1430

HYDERABAD, Jan 30: A research scholar has claimed to have developed eight new wheat genotypes (seeds), which can produce more grain with less water.

Mehboob Ali Siyal, who is doing Ph.D on “Genetic improvement of semi-dwarf bread wheat for water stress tolerance through conventional, mutation breeding and biotechnological techniques”, said at a seminar on Friday that he had developed eight new genotypes in the course of his study, which produced higher yield at residual moisture.

He said that water stress (shortage of water), high temperature and salinity were the main environmental constraints for the wheat crop, which were being addressed at global level with reference to many crops including wheat since last few years.

Shortage of irrigation water in the canals had developed serious drought conditions in the country for the past few years, particularly during Rabi season, the scholar said and added that due to severe water shortage, both area under wheat and yield per unit had drastically shrunk over the years.

A healthy wheat crop in this area required 16-20 acre-inches of irrigation water at almost 5-6 different stages of growth (tillering, pre-anthesis booting, heading), post-anthesis (grain filling period, milky stage, dough stage), he said.

He said that genotypes possessed various drought-related morphological as well as physiological traits and high yield genotypes possessed better tolerance to water stress and also had early maturity and more grain.

He said that he had observed in the present studies that at least two to three irrigations, first at tillering stage and the second at pre- or post-anthesis (the action or period of opening of a flower) stage were critical for wheat crop to get more yield at low water availability.

He said that material generated through the studies had been tested in different environments to confirm stability for yield performance among genotypes.

Most of the seeds showed wide adaptability and stability over a range of environments, others showed specific adaptation to poor, harsh or unfavourable and favourable or high yielding environments, he said and added that high yielding and drought-tolerant genotypes had been confirmed through molecular marker technology and could be further utilised in breeding programme to evolve more water-stress tolerant wheat varieties.

These genotypes could be used in water stressed environments of the country hit by water scarcity as planting such genotypes would enhance the area under wheat crop, which would ultimately increase the income of poor farmers, he said.

The scholar has completed research work at the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering of the University of Sindh.