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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Plant roots play an important adaptive role in drought prone environments. Although there have been many efforts to improve root traits to develop drought tolerant maize varieties but significant progress has not yet been made mainly due to difficulty in screening root traits. The aim of the study was to develop an easy and reliable screening method for deep root mass and related root/shoot traits of maize in greenhouse and evaluate their association with the grain yield under water-deficit conditions. The present study was conducted in the green house facility at the Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Wadura. Thirteen released varieties of maize were evaluated in the present study under drought and irrigated conditions. Highest rooting depth under drought was shown by C-4 (126.50 cm). Recorded highest recorded Root biomass under drought was for C-15 (40.50 g). Root biomass at bottom was recorded highest under drought for GM-6 (0.414 g). Root shoot ratio was recorded highest under drought for C-15 (0.764). Under drought most of the traits had decreased value except for root biomass at bottom and shoot to total biomass which had higher values under drought. The highest percentage decrease was observed for root biomass (70.891) followed by shoot biomass (67.759) and plant height (27.120) while, as lowest percent decrease was recorded in case of shoot to total biomass (3.484). The traits root biomass at bottom and root shoot ratio had increased values under drought 28.463 and 9.388 respectively.