MORPHOMETRIC CHARACTERIZATION OF THE BREAD WHEAT VARIETY "ISKANDARIA" IN THE REGION OF AOUGROUT (ADRAR)

Abstract

In Algeria, the diversity of wheat is poorly known for this reason an inventory has been made in a region
of southern Algeria "Adrar", specifically in the area of Aougrout, located south of the Timimoun region.
Therefore, local varieties of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) have been tried for morphological
characterization. In this context, only one traditional bread wheat variety was studied using nine
quantitative agromorphological traits and eight qualitative traits. The phenotypic diversity was
determined by the Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H’) at different levels. The estimated H’s showed
a wide phenotypic variability for the different traits with an average H’ of 0.68 for the quantitative traits
and 0.34 for the qualitative traits. The results of this work revealed the great phenotypic diversity of the
bread wheat variety (Iskandaria) studied and show that this local variety (whose genetic composition
remains to be studied more precisely) is mainly grown by traditional farmers, who conserve this genetic
resource often on very small plots in oases and inaccessible land.