To reveal the relationship between the drought-related physiological indices and the drought-tolerant performance, 50 wheat landrace and elite accessions in total from inland and abroad are used for screening the drought-tolerant wheat germplasm during the seedling stage followed by a statistical analysis for the drought tolerant potential and the four physiological indices including the leaf potassium (K⁺), the soluble sugar, the malondialdehyde (MDA), and the proline (Pro) content. The screening result shows that the seedling survival differs dramatically after desiccation. Among them, Chuanmai 42, Xinong 2000, and Zhouyuan 936 show a high survival rate of over 65%, with the rest lower than 42%. The 4 physiological indices are determined for the above three high drought-tolerance wheat accessions and three low drought-tolerance ones (Kefeng10, Chinese Spring and Yumai 9676) selected at random. Correlation analysis shows a positive relationship between the drought resistance and the leaf K⁺, the soluble sugar, and the Pro levels while negative in terms of the MDA content, which implies a high correlation between the four selected physiological indices and the drought-tolerant performance.

wheat  /  drought resistance  /  physiological indices  /  survival rate  /  correlation analysis