JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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Information about forms of zinc (Zn) is important for the evaluation of its status in soil and also understanding of the soil fertility and chemistry. To obtain such information, amounts and distribution of Zn in different fractions of 20 soil samples of Tehran province, Iran were determined by sequential extraction method and their relationships with each other and with soil characteristics were investigated. Total Zn of soils ranged from 70 to 169.9 mg/kg^-1. The amount of different Zn forms relative to the sum of forms was determined to be as follows: organic less than 0.1, soluble+exchangeable 0.1, manganese-oxide-associated 0.9, carbonate 1.6, crystalline iron-oxide-associated 3.8, amorphous iron-oxide-associated 4.2, and residual form 89.3%. Simple correlation coefficients showed that pH had a negative significant correlation with all forms of Zn except organic. Silt and clay contents had significant positive correlations with total, residual, and crystalline iron-oxide-asociated Zn but CEC had significant correlation only with total Zn. Calcium carbonate equivalent showed a significant correlation with soluble+exchangeable, manganese-oxide-associated and amorphous iron-oxide-associated Zn. DTPA-extractable Zn was significantly correlated with soluble+exchangeable, carbonate, and amorphous iron-oxide-associated Zn. A significant correlation was also observed between the Zn forms themselves, which is presumably a reflection of the existence of a dynamic relation between the chemical forms of an element in soil.

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In order to evaluate grain yield potential and study dry matter remobilization to seed, 8 commercial bread wheat cultivars were examined in two separate experiments, using randomized complete block design with 4 replications in 2003. There were significant differences for most traits in normal and drought conditions. Sarday variety had the least grain yield in the two environments. There was considerable variation between genotypes for independent parameters of dry matter remobilization to different plant parts in the two environments. Factor analysis showed that seven factors accounted for 100 % of the data total variance in normal and drought conditions. Factor analysis also showed that the effective traits to components grain yield , height and phenological traits were important for the selection of appropriate genotypes. Calculation of drought resistance indices showed that four indices including mean productivity, geometric mean productivity, harmonic index, stress tolerance index were more effective than other indices for the selection of drought tolerant genotypes.

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Generation mean analysis (GMA) was used to study the type of gene action and inheritance of grain yield and its components. Generation mean analysis with joint scaling test was performed. This research was conducted at research farm of college of Agriculture at the University of Tehran. The parents and their progenies ( F1, F2, BC1 & BC2) in three mating groups ( Sardari × 7007, Sardari × 7107& 7107 × 5593) were produced and planted using a randomized complete block design with four replications for each mating group. Of four replications in each experiment, two replications for drought and two replications for non-drought condition were used. The eight traits which were evaluated included grain yield, plant height, plant weight, tiller number, spike length, grains per spikes and 100 grain weight. Most of the genetic parameters including mean (m), additive (d), dominant (h), additive × additive [i], additive × dominant [j], and dominant × dominant[l] effects were significant. However, all gene effects were not significant in all traits.The dominant gene effect was the most contributor factor to inheritance of the majority of traits. For the majority of the traits, additive gene effect was significant, but its magnitude was less than dominant gene effect. Also the dominant × dominant[l] epistasis was more important than additive× additive [i] epistasis. The degree of dominance in most of traits indicated the predominance of dominant gene effects.