Biological and agronomical assessment of wheat landraces cultivated in mountain areas of Uzbekistan

Wheat cultivation for thousands of years under extreme environment of the Central Asia resulted in local wheat cultivars adapted to local soil and climatic conditions. In the past, main wheat production in Uzbekistan was concentrated on dry-farming land of piedmont and mountain regions where precipitation and warm were sufficient as minimal conditions for stable wheat cultivation. Expansion of area under cultivation of intensive high productive commercial wheat cultivars brought decreasing of areas on which wheat landraces had been cultivated. However, wheat landraces were being kept by local farmers in remote districts where no intensive cultivars had been spread widely. Employment of valuable genetic resources of locally originated cultivars is important in plant breeding programs. The aim of current study is to characterize landraces of winter wheat of Uzbekistan by morphological and quality traits (e.g. plant heights, yielding, etc.) with geo-information data on the points of landraces origin, and also to analyze elements of crop productivity. Wheat landraces such as Kzyl-Bugday, Ak-Bugday, Tyuya-Tish, unnamed landrace and also Surhak (created from local landrace) were used in this study. Landraces differed from commercial cultivars by morphological traits such as plant height, length and density of spike. Selection in the region was carried out by morphological traits. Using GPS-navigation during expedition to survey wheat landraces, a spreading of the studied landraces was mapped. Collected samples of wheat landraces were cultivated during four sessions. Commercial Krasnodarskay 99 served as a control cultivar for comparison. Result of statistical analysis of fifteen lines, i.e. Kzyl-bugday 2-6T, Kzyl-bugday 3-7T, Kzyl-bugday 9-4T, Kzyl-bugday 5-4T, Kzyl-bugday 11-4T, Kzyl-bugday 1-4T, Ak-bugday 8-2T, Ak-bugday 7-3T, Ak-bugday 16-5T, Surhak 12-3T, Surhak 15-6T, Tyuya-Tish 10-4T, 13-8T (unnamed), 14-3T (unnamed), showed significant difference in plant height compared to the control cultivar. Although the average productivity of studied landraces did not differ from that in the control variety, two landraces, Tyuya-Tish 10-4T and Kzyl-bugday 1-4T, differed from the control cultivar in productivity. The weight of 1000 kernel was higher in nine landraces, Kzyl-bugday 2-6T, Kzyl-bugday 3-7T, Kzyl-bugday 9-4T, Kzyl-bugday 5-4T, Surhak 12-3T, Kzyl-bugday 1-4T, 14-3T (unnamed), Ak-bugday 16-5T, Surhak 15-6T, compared to the control cultivar. Gluten content was significantly higher in Kzyl-bugday 9-4T, Ak-bugday 8-2T, Ak-bugday 16-5T and 13-8T (unnamed) landraces as compared to Krasnodarskaya 99 cultivar, while medium gluten content was characteristic of other landraces.