The correlation between water-holding capacity and economically valuable traits in winter triticale

In the breeding of cereal crops, special attention is given to improving the resistance of new varieties to adverse environmental factors, as this largely determines their level of productivity. For triticale research in this direction there have been few, and least of all studied drought tolerance of this crop. The aim of our work was to study the water-holding capacity of leaves and ears, as this indicator characterizes the ability to resist dehydration. The correlation of water exchange parameters of plants (water retaining capacity of leaves, flag leaf and ears) with economically valuable traits (yield, winter hardiness, resistance to lodging, plant height, etc.) for the collection of winter triticale samples is analyzed. The water exchange indices themselves were determined from the numbers from the competitive variety testing (1997, 1999-2001) on the experimental field of the Omsk GAU. Correlation analysis showed that many pairs of signs of connection were not significant. And only the correlation of water holding capacity with the height of plants was more often significant and positive (r = 0.264-0.564). At the same time, the dependence of the water holding capacity on the lodging resistance was characterized by negative values (r = -0.271... -0.402). In dry periods, a positive correlation of the water-holding capacity with yield was revealed (r = 0.319-0.433). As a result, according to the correlation data, it is possible to assume a decrease in resistance to drought with a decrease in plant height in winter triticale samples. At the same time, the selection of highly productive and drought-tolerant breeding numbers with the help of an indicator of water retention capacity can be effective.