Both drought and heat stress are responsible for decline in wheat (
Triticium aestivum
L.) production in many regions of the world. IPCC has predicted increase in these areas. Development of heat and drought tolerant genotypes is on priority. Landraces are unexploited genetic resources for various agronomic traits contributing tolerance to abiotic stress. Twenty-five wheat genotypes were evaluated in irrigated timely, rainfed timely and irrigated late sown conditions for 2 yr using 10 agronomic traits for their response to drought and heat stress and four stress indices (stress susceptibility index, stress tolerance index, mean productivity, and stress tolerance) were calculated. Variability averaged over traits was highest under rainfed conditions. Grain yield, plant height, and productive tillers were more sensitive and test grain weight as tolerant under drought. Under heat stress grain yield, grain weight, test grain weight and phenological traits were more sensitive. Productive tillers and grain number per spike were identified as important selection parameters for drought and grain weight (per spike and test grain weight) as for heat tolerance. Genotypes IC 321987, IC 322005, IC 138852, IC 138870 adapted to stressed environments or genotypes CPAN 4079 and NEPAL 38 stable over all environments can be used for introgression of the stress tolerance in elite cultivars.
