* Division of Agricultural Physics, IARI, New Delhi-110012.
Division of Plant Physiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012
Early sown Tainted wheat suffers losses in germination, seedling establishment and grain yield due to higher temperatures prevailing at sowing time. As the advancing of sowing date of rainfed wheat is considered to be beneficial in view of the availability of larger amounts of stored soil moisture from the preceding monsoon, the present work was carried out to see whether the adverse effects of temperature could be mitigated by using (i) suitable plant type or (ii) higher seed rates. A variety i.e., Hindi 62 known for its relatively better performance under early sown rainfed condition and another high yielding variety HD 2329 were subjected to three sowing dates i.e., early, normal and late, and three seed rates i.e., 80, 120 and 160 kg/ha.
Though the seedling establishment was reduced in early sowing, higher seed rates increased it considerably. Higher seed rate plots which had larger leaf area and heavier crop stands but lower soil moisture at 90 days from sowing and lower water potential and transpiration rate of the flag leaf, gave grain yields similar to the lower seed rate plots.
Hindi 62 produced higher productive shoot number and grain yield than HD 2329 in the three sowings. The former variety was also characterised by a larger leaf area and a longer duration from sowing to maturity. Based on these results suggestions have been made about a wheat plant type for early sown rainfed condition.
