Effect of sowing date on grain yield and quality of some Egyptian bread wheat genotypes

There are many factors responsible for the decline in average wheat yield. One of these determining factors is the sowing date, which greatly affects the grain yield and other quality characteristics. The main objective of this study was to investigate the performance of various wheat genotypes when sown at various dates, including how these sowing dates affected the yield and its components as well as seed quality. Therefore, during the 2018 – 2019 and 2019 – 2020 growing seasons, two field experiments were carried out at the Sakha Agricultural Research Station in Egypt using a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. There were a total of 30 treatments, including three dates of sowing i.e. 5 th November, 5 th December and 5 th January and 10 wheat genotypes i.e. Misr1, Misr2,Misr3, Sakha94, Sakha95, Line1, Giza171, Gemmiza12, Sids14 and Shandaweel1.The results showed that the early sowing date on the 5 th of November gave the highest values for 1000 grain weight, seedling length, dry seedling weight, electrical conductivity, and hectoliter weight. In addition, the December 5 th sowing was placed first and produced the highest number of spikes/m 2 , grain yield and germination %. While, sowing of wheat on 5 th of January, gave the lowest values for all characteristics, except protein % and gluten wet and dry %. In addition, Misr3 cultivar outperformed the other examined genotypes and recorded the highest number of spikes/m 2 and grain yield/fed. The highest values for germination, seedling dry weight, protein content, hectoliter weight, and wet and dry gluten percent were also observed in Line1 genotype. A correlation study of all the assessed characteristics revealed that electrical conductivity test and number of spikes/m 2 were negatively correlated with all the examined quality parameters. It can be concluded that, sowing on 5 th of November is advised for wheat crop to obtain higher yield in five cultivars (Misr3, Sakha94, Gemmiza12, Sids14, and Shandaweel1), but sowing on 5 th of December is advised to maximize wheat productivity and obtain good quality of grains in the other five genotypes. Due to late seeding, Misr3 and Sakha 95, two of the 10 genotypes employed, produced more grain yield than the other genotypes but Line1 genotype was superior for most of grain quality parameters so, this study recommended use Misr 3 & Sakha 95 cultivars and the promissing wheat genotype (Line1) to develop bread wheat genotypes in breeding programs under the environmental conditions of Kafr Elsheikh governorate.