Growth performance of spring wheat under heat stress conditions

Abstract Three spring wheat varieties and one advanced line were evaluated under high temperature environment to find out the heat stress tolerant variety(s) and/or genotype suitable for cultivation in rising temperature all over the Bangladesh, even in the world. The field experiment was conducted with two environments; one was normal growing environment (seeded on 30 November) and another in late seeding (heat stress) environment (seeded on 30 December) at the field of Wheat Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Nashipur, Dinajpur, Bangladesh. The varieties and advanced line phased higher temperature during late seeding condition compared to normal sowing. The advanced line and varieties performed better in normal growing environment compared to heat stress condition. In stress environment, BARI Gom-27 produced the maximum tillers (706.5, 503.2 & 296.5 m-2 at 40, 60 & 80 DAS, respectively) followed by BAW-1151 and BARI Gom-28 produced the second highest at 80 DAS (287.4 m-2). BAW-1151 performed the best concerning dry matter (631.3 g m-2 at 80 DAS), then BARI Gom-28 (622.9 g m-2 at 80 DAS). In addition, BAW-1151 produced the most leaf area (3536.7 cm3 m-2 at 80 DAS) followed by BARI Gom-28 (3199.7 cm3 m-2 at 80 DAS). Moreover, BARI Gom-28 produced the highest yield in heat stress environment (3.59 t ha-1) followed by BARI Gom-27 and BARI Gom-26 (each 3.08 t ha-1), but BAW-1151 had the worst (2.9 t ha-1). Considering overall performance, the BARI Gom-28 can be the prominent variety for heat stress followed by BARI Gom-27 or BARI Gom-26.