Genetic Diversity in Triticum aestivum L. Induced by Gamma Irradiation and Selection for Drought Stress by Using PEG 6000

In the face of climatic changes, drought is receiving increasing attention, as shown by the growing number of studies on drought tolerance in plants. This is study was carried out to investigate the effect of gamma radiation doses (50, 100, 150 and 200 Gy) and polyethylene glycol 6000 concentrations (10, 15, 20 and 25%) in growth parameters in Gimmeza 10 wheat. These both treatments caused a decline seed germination percentage as well as shoot and root length, fresh and dry weight and the impact is increasingly dose or concentration increase. Irradiated plants were slightly less in length than control. However, the plants lengths under the impact of drought stress are decreasing severely until dwarfism. The heading date in both treatments had been late 20 – 30 day. The irradiated plants were better than control in wheat spikes size, length, number of tiller and grains. Whereas the drought stress caused a severe negative impact on wheat spikes size, length and grain number and the grain was shrinkage