Evaluation of Some Genotypes of Wheat (Triticum Durum L.) Under Conditions in Al Jabal Al Akhdar - Libya.

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at the research farm of the College of Agriculture during the season (2019-2020) to evaluate the performance of six genetic compositions under semi-arid conditions using the green fodder. These compositions were obtained from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), compared to the local variety "Ain Al-Faras." The treatments were planted according to a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Significant differences were observed among all the genetic compositions for all the studied traits. The variety "Ain Al-Faras" outperformed the other genetic compositions in plant height, spike length, number of grains per spike, grain yield, straw yield, and biological weight, with values of 86 cm, 9.65 cm, 61 grains/spike, 1.14 tons/ha, 10.68 tons/ha, and 11.82 tons/ha, respectively. Genetic composition 2020-741 also excelled in the trait of number of grains per spike (52.33), while genetic composition D2020-72 exhibited superiority in the trait of thousand-grain weight (63.35 g). Moreover, genetic composition D2020-4 showed a higher harvest index compared to the other genetic compositions, with a value of 12.91. The results indicated that the values of phenotypic variance were close to the values of genetic variance for most of the studied traits. The highest heritability ratio was observed for the traits of number of grains per spike and grain yield. High relative genetic advance values were recorded along with high values of specific combining ability for both the number of grains per spike and grain yield. Therefore, it is possible to infer the genetic composition through morphological data, and such traits can be considered as selection criteria for improving these crops.