2008 A P P L I E D A N D N A T U R A L S C I E N C E F O U N D A T I O N ANSF JANS Journal of Applied and Natural Science 7 (2) : 949 - 954 (2015) Effect of waterlogging tolerance in wheat (Tritium aestivum L.) at ear emer- gence stage on growth, biochemical and yield parameters in sodic soil Vinaya Kumar Yadav 1 , Mamta Kajla 2 , S. P. Singh 1 , A. K. Singh 1 , R. K. Yadav 1 , Ajeet Kumar Dwivedi 1 1 Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj, Faizabad-224229 (U.P.), INDIA 2 ICAR- Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal-132001 (Haryana), INDIA Corresponding author. E-mail: vinayayadav1988@gmail.com Received: March 14, 2015; Revised received: October 4, 2015; Accepted: November 20, 2015 Abstract: Globally more than one-third of the irrigated area is under waterlogging which limits our wheat production and out of which northern Indo-Gangetic plains of India alone had 2.5 million ha affected by irregular waterlogging. So, to meet out the food demand of ever-growing population we have to find some alternates to harness the poten- tial of the waterlogged area. With this point of view this investigation was conducted to study the changes in growth and biochemical behavior of wheat due to waterlogging at ear emergence stage in sodic soil and also to assess the traits conferring higher yield at experimental site of department of crop physiology, Narendra Deva University of Ag- riculture & Technology, Kumarganj, Faizabad (U.P.), India. The results showed that the genotypic variability exists for waterlogging tolerance in wheat varieties evaluated under investigation. HD-2009 which is susceptible to water- logging gave poor performance in terms of growth parameters, biochemical behavior and traits conferring higher yield under waterlogging conditions at ear head emergence stage in sodic soil as compared to HD-2851, KRL-3-4 and KRL-99 wheat varieties. KRL-99 (1.80g yield plant -1 ) gave best results followed KRL-3-4 (1.37g yield plant -1 ) by under waterlogged conditions at ear head emergence stage in sodic soil. Keywords: Biochemical parameter, Growth parameter, Waterlogging tolerance, Yield parameter INTRODUCTION Globally, wheat (Tritium aestivum L.) is world’s third largest crop after maize and rice occupies about 218.5 million hectare with an average yield of 3.26 t ha -1 (FAO, 2014). In India, it is second important staple food crop, after rice both in terms of area and with a production of 95.91 million tons from an area of 30 million hectares, thus contributing about 34 per cent of total food grain production (USDA, 2014). In U.P., it ranks first in respect of crop coverage area 19.96 mil- lion hectares and production 50.84 million tons but the average productivity is much lower (25.47q ha -1 ) than Punjab (42.58 qha -1 ) (Anonymous, 2013-14). India need for food security to produce 109 million metric tones of wheat by 2020 with annual rate of increase in production of about 2.2 per cent while present rate of annual increase is about 1.0 per cent. Salinity, alkalin- ity and waterlogging (WL) are the major stresses re- stricting crop stand and yield. Total area under de- graded and wastelands in the country stands at 114.01 M ha, area under salt-affected soils is 6.73 M ha, under acid soils is 16.03 M ha and under waterlogging is 14.29 M ha (NRSA, 2005). Waterlogging adversely affect 10-15 million ha of wheat production annually on a global level (Sayre et al., 1994), which represents 15-20% of the 70 million ha. of wheat grown every ISSN : 0974-9411 (Print), 2231-5209 (Online) All Rights Reserved © Applied and Natural Science Foundation www.ansfoundation.org year. In India, the most common environmental inter- actions with WL are low or high soil alkalinity. Water- logging tolerance of wheat may differ depending upon the stage of growth and other environmental factors. Variable results have been reported for yield loss vs. stage of waterlogging. Watson et al. (1976) reported larger reduction in grain yield of wheat, barley and oat when 6 weeks of continuous waterlogging started at 2 weeks after sowing in comparison to waterlogging started at 6 weeks or 10-14 weeks (ear emergence) after sowing. However, Gardner and Flood (1993) sug- gested that early reproductive stage are more adversely affected by waterlogging than tillering stage due to reduction in grains ear -1 . Bao (1997) found that for twenty varieties of wheat, the order of intolerance to waterlogging at different stages was booting> joint- ing> tillering> grain filling. However, no significant difference in waterlogging tolerance of wheat was ob- served with 4-12 days of waterlogging at tillering vs. flowering in sodic soils of India (Gill et al., 1992). Wheat grain has relatively high content of niacin and thiamine that is why wheat proteins are especially sig- nificant. Besides their significance in nutrition, they are principally concerned in providing the ‘gluten’ which provides spongy cellular texture of bread and baked products. It is consumed in the form of chapa- ties, puris, suji or rawa. Wheat straw is a good source