Vol. 9, Special Issue 1, Part D (2025)

Heat stress is a major abiotic stress in bread wheat. The northwestern plain zones (NWPZ) large area was affected by heat stress in India. Climate change and increasing heat is responsible for decreasing the yield at terminal stage of growth wheat. Thus, specific selection of heat stress tolerant varieties is an essential task to battle the climate change effect. The present study aims for physio-biochemical screening of timely sown DBW90, DBW173, PBW 752, PBW 757, HD 3226 and NWPZ wheat varieties of India for their thermal stress tolerance along with heat tolerant (HD3298). The experiment was conducted in randomized block design under environmental condition. Later different physio-biochemical traits were studied in both control and stress condition. All traits exhibited significant variations among varieties under stress condition. Relative water content, chlorophyll content reduced significantly, whereas enzymatic activity of catalase, peroxidase and proline content were increased in stress plants. A tolerance matrix was prepared based on stress response of the varieties for each trait and a final tolerance score was given to each varieties. Hence, this study helps in selection of varieties for sowing better response in NWPZ for climate change.

Here showed PBW 752 and PBW 757 had minimum tolerance under heat condition as compared to other selected varieties. Therefore, the results shows DBW 90, HD 3226 could be identified as better response to heat-tolerance.