Studying the comparative performance of wheat cultivars for growth and grains production

The growth, agronomic and yield parameters of eleven wheat varieties including two advance lines such as Inqlab-91, Chakwal-97, Iqbal-2000, Uqab-2000, Ufaq-2000, Wafaq-2000, SH-2002, AS-2002, Bhakkar-2001, 95153 and 97052 were compared in this manuscript. The planned study was conducted at University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. The varieties exhibit a wide range of crop growth rate (17.74 to 21.99 g m-2day-1), radiation use efficiency for dry matter (2.16 to 2.63 g MJ-1) as well as grains (0.73 to 0.88 g MJ-1), plant height (76.82 to 100.8 cm), fertile tillers (223.8 to 298.0 m-2), spike length (8.14 to 10.77 cm), no. of spike lets (16.75 to 18.50) and grains (44.78 to 51.24) per spike, 1000 grains weight (36.75 to 42.25 g), straw (6.43 to 8.69 t ha-1) and grains yield (3.26 to 4.40 t ha-1). The variety AS-2002 can be considered the best performer for radiation use efficiency for both dry matter and grains and grains production among treatments. The grain yield in this study was mainly depended on RUE and1000 grains weight among the tested yield components. The wide variations among varieties for tested traits might be the result of variable genetic composition and adaptive response to soil and climatic factors. In summary, better understanding of varietals response to agronomic practices will be more helpful to select the variety for the area.