Cultivar Release, Bahar, A New Breed Wheat Cultivar for Cultivation under Irrigation Conditions of Temperate Regions of Iran

Authors

Abstract

 A breeding hexaploid line named Bloyka (ICW84-0008-013AP-300L-3AP-300L-0AP) was introduced to Iran through international nurseries RBWYT-FA and RBWON-FA from International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in 1996 and evaluated at three research stations of temperate zone (Karaj, Islam-Abad and Zarghan). Due to its superior grain yield over check cultivars (7.014 tha-1 vs. 6.986 tha-1 of Mahdavi in Karaj, 8.246 tha-1 vs. 8.002 of Mahdavi in Islam-Abad and 8.111 tha-1 vs. 8.222 of Marvdasht in Zarghan) it was selected and forwarded to advanced trials. This line was tested in advanced trials of temperate zone breeding program during 1997-2000 and due to its qualifications including resistance to stripe and leaf rusts it was considered to be included in adaptation trials. Therefore as an elite genotype (encoded as M-79-7) this line was investigated in adaptation trial in 9 research stations of temperate zone along with check cultivar Marvdasht during 2000-2002. Based on results of two cropping seasons this line produced 6.914 tha-1 grain yield in average in comparison to 6.521 tha-1 of Marvdasht. This line with mean rank of 6.5 and standard deviation of rank equal to 4.8 was one of the most stable genotypes of investigated germplasm set. Drought tolerance of M-79-7 line was also assessed under water deficit conditions compared to Pishtaz check cultivar for irrigated farms and Sardari, Azar-2 and Cross of Alborz cultivars for rain fed conditions and it was found to be partially tolerant to terminal drought. In respect to disease resistance its reaction to a newly spread race of stripe rust in Zarghan research station was 25MR against 80MS, 80MS and 30MR/M for check cultivars Shiraz, Marvdasht and Pishtaz respectively. Bread making quality of M-79-7 was assessed to be moderate to good based on its 11% grain protein content, 83.5 kg hectoliter weight, 29 ml Zeleny sedimentation volume and 54 degrees of grain hardness. The high molecular weight glutenin subunit genotype of M-79-7 line was 2*, 7+8 and 2+12 for three loci of Glu-A1, Glu-B1 and Glu-D1 respectively. Validation trials in farmer's fields confirmed this line as a qualified genotype to be released as a new irrigated bread wheat for temperate regions of Iran.