investigation of drought stress tolerance and adaptation in iranian endemic coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) populations

in order to investigate drought stress tolerance and adaptation in 15 iranian endemic coriander (coriandrum sativum l.), three experiments were conducted separately through randomized complete block design whit three replications in field conditions. in experiments, the coriander populations were well watered, stressed at one step and stressed gradually, respectively. in this research, 17 phonological, morphological and physiological traits were measured. results of univariate and multivariate combined analysis of variance showed the difference among experiments and coriander populations for drought tolerance. means comparison through lsd test showed significant difference among experiments for the most of traits. the highest effect of drought stress was on the fruit yield. three dimensional diagrams based on geometric mean productivity for fruit yield and fruit essential oil content revealed that p10 can be introduced for fruit and essential oil production in regions that have drought stress problem at the end of growth season. the highest broad sense heritability was observed for fruit number per plant in the first experiment and harvest index in both drought stressed experiments. by considering heritability and genetic gain of fruit number and fruit yield traits, production of hybrid variety can be suggested for improving these traits.