1. HAFIZ MUHAMMAD AZHER FAREED - Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur,
Pakistan.
2. MUHAMMAD AOWN SAMMAR RAZA - Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur,
Pakistan.
3. MUHAMMAD ASGHAR SHAHID - Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur,
Pakistan.
4. RASHID IQBAL - Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur,
Pakistan.
5. MUHAMMAD USMAN ASLAM - Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur,
Pakistan.
6. MUHAMMAD ARSHAD JAVED - Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of the Punjab
Lahore, Pakistan.
7. QURBAN ALI - Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of the Punjab
Lahore, Pakistan.
Sustainable production of wheat is threatened by the most sensitive issue of drought. To meet the increasing demand for food worldwide, there is a need to adopt an effective approach to counter attack the negative impact of drought and to increase the final grain yield. A screening out study was carried out in 2020 in wire house at the the research area of Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia university of Bahawalpur. The experiment was arranged under a completely randomized design having eight Wheat cultivars and 4 drought treatments. Eight cultivars tested out during study were V1 = Ghazi-2019, V2 = Akbar-2019, V3 = Anaj-2017, V4 = Ujala-2016, V5 = Borlaug-2016, V6 = Fakhar-e-Bakhar, V7 = Johar-2016 and V8 = Faisalabad-2008 whereas drought treatments consisted of D0 = Normal Irrigation, D1 = Drought at Tillering, D2 = Drought at Anthesis and D3 = Drought at Grain Filling. The effect of drought at different stages on wheat varieties was analyzed by performing statistical analysis, and as a result, drought tolerant variety was identified. Among wheat varieties V2 = Akbar-2019 showed significant maximum results whereas V8 = Faisalabad-2008 was the most sensitive cultivar against drought stress. Akbar-2019 showed an 8.43 % increase in Plant height, an increase of Leaf area index by 4.51 %, Biological yield by 54.94%, 1000 Grain weight by 51.27% and Grain yield by 42.82 % as compared to Faisalabad-2008. Whereas D0 = Normal Irrigation treatment showed the highest rate of growth, yield, physiological and biochemical attributes and the lowest values were obtained in D3 = Drought at Grain filling, showing a decrease in Catalase activity (70.91 %), Superoxide Dismutase activity (30.65 %), Peroxide activity (4.71 %), Ascorbate Peroxidase activity (39.94 %), spike length (10.61 %) as compared to D0 = Normal Irrigation.
drought; growth; genotypes; screening; yield; wheat.