AGRO MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND STUDY OF GRAIN YIELD OF ALGERIAN DURUM WHEAT (TRITICUM DURUM.DESF.

Improvement and rehabilitation passes necessarily by a characterization step and a performance evaluation in view of future use. In this context, a collection of 26 accessions of durum wheat (Triticum durum.desf) was studied based on an assortment of agro morphological and physiological traits. This study took place during the campaign of 2011/2012 on the ITGC site of el khroub station. This site represents the highest Algerian eastern plains. The results showed highly significant varietal differences for all measured parameters. Highly positive significant links have been found between grain yield and the number of grains produced per unit area, and the number of grain per spike. The principal component analysis, described a total variation of 77.36 %, and the hierarchical classification has divided the genotypes according to their phenotypic variation into three distinct groups. The first one includes old varieties showing adaptability to climatic conditions to the studied area. They are late and large. In contrast, the two groups left are formed by improved genotypes and other newly introduced ones. They are characterized by a small, early maturity at heading, and show higher values for all performance components.