RECALCITRANCE POTENTIAL OF WHEAT HYBRIDS AND LOCAL CULTIVAR AGAINST YELLOW RUST DISEASE AND WEEDS DENSITY UNDER CLIMATIC CONDITION OF PESHAWAR, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Wheat cultivars can be severely affected by new race of leaf and stripe rust which possessing Yr27 resistance gene in Pakistan and worldwide during previous four years. Thus, great importance could be given to develop new wheat cultivar that could resist leaf and stripe rust diseases. Yellow rust disease is caused by certain pathogens like basidiomycete fungus Puccina striiformis Westend f. species tritici Eriks, it is one of the most devastating foliar diseases of wheat in Pakistan and worldwide. Two years experiments were conducted in Agronomy Research Farm, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan to evaluate the potential response of wheat hybrid lines (18A-1 and 18A-2) in comparison with local check (Ghaneemat-2016) against yellow rust disease.Results exhibited that wheat hybrid 18A-1 depicted resistant (R) with coefficient of infection (CI) of 0.1. Hybrid wheat 18A-2 showed host reaction (10MR) with coefficient of infection (4.0). Contrary to this, local wheat variety (Ghaneemat-2016) showed moderate susceptibility (30MS) type of host reaction with 24 CI value during season 2018-19. A moderate resistant (MR) type of host reaction with CI (16.0) was observed for local variety (Ghaneemat-2016) during season 2019-20. Among wheat hybrids 18A-2 depicted no visible infection while 18A-1 exposed resistant 1R type of host reaction with CI (0.2) during 2019-20.Chinese wheat hybrids have the high potential to resist against yellow rust as compared with local check variety. Higher weeds density, fresh and dry weeds density increased by increasing irrigation frequencyfor local check Ghaneemat-2016 when sown early (15th November). Conclusively, from the study it is statedin wheat breeding program, identification of molecular markers facilitates the marker assisted selection of the resistance genes against yellow rust diseases, furthermore molecular markers should be used for marker assisted permitted that efficiently screening the large population.