Effect of artificial drought stress on seed quality of bread wheat . Alpay Balkan*

  The aim of the present study was to determine effects of artificial drought stress on the characteristics of germination and seedling growth in bread wheat cultivars. The material of experiment consisted of seeds obtained from eight bread wheat cultivars with different response to drought (Alpu 2001, Sultan 95, Konya 2002, Eser as sensitive cultivars; Karahan 99, Tosunbey, Kate A1 as resistant cultivars and Golia as moderate-resistant cultivar) after their treatment, in the previous year, by artificial drought stress through using chemical desiccant (4% potassium chlorate-KClO3). The laboratory experiment was conducted in randomized split plot design with 4 replicates. Results indicated that cultivars had almost a significant effect on all measured characteristics. The highest water uptake and root number were observed in the moderate-resistant cultivar. The resistant cultivars had relatively higher values than the other cultivars for germination percentage, coleoptile length, seedling length, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight and root dry weight. However, the highest mean germination time, root length and root fresh weight were observed in drought sensitive cultivars. The non-desiccant seeds showed higher performances for root number, coleoptiles length, seedling length, seedling fresh weight, seedling dry weight, root fresh weight and root dry weight than desiccated seeds. In contrast, desiccated seeds had better values of water uptake and germination percentage than non-desiccant seeds. As a result, it was concluded that artificial drought stress by desiccant application affected negatively seed quality due to its detractive impact on seed size in bread wheat.