Assessing Suitability of Wheat Genotypes for Growth, Yield and Nutrients Uptake under Sand Culture

Genetic variability among genotypes of a plant is responsible for variation in growth, yield and nutrients uptake performance. This research investigated the survival and growth efficiency of the 10 wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes under sand culture including Batoor-2007, Barsat (NRL 0320), Fakhr-e-Sharhad-99 (FS-99), Tatara-96 (WS 395), Paktunkhwa-15 (PR-103), NIFA Lalma (NRL 0517), Pirsabak 2013, NIFA Insaf (NRL 0707), Shahkar-2015 and Pirsabak 2015 (PR-105). Pots were arranged in completely randomized design in a glass-house at the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Peshawar, during 2016. Hoagland solution was used as irrigation and plant nutrition applied at 3 days interval. Environmental variation was minimized through constant shuffling of pots every 7^th day. The genotype FS-99 showed significantly (p 0.01) higher plant height, chlorophyll content, root length, biological yield, grain N, K and Zn uptake, straw N and P accumulation compared to the rest. For root N, Pirsabak 2015 was similar to FS-99 (7.2, 7.1 mg pot-1) whilst being significantly higher over the rest. Some other genotypes were superior for specific attributes like Batoor-2007 for grain P and Straw Zn, NRL-0320 for straw K, NRL 0707 for root K and PR-103, NRL 0517 and NRL 0707 for root Zn. However, FS-99 stood distinctive upon the superior agronomic performance and nutrients accumulation attributes and is suggested for cultivation.