Abstract
Hundred wheat genotypes were sown in polythene bags in green house for seedling traits evaluation under water
deficit condition such as emergence percentage, emergence index, emergence rate index, energy of emergence,
mean emergence time desiccation tolerance index and percent seedling recovery. Analysis of variance revealed
significant differences among genotypes in most of traits. The estimates of genetic variance were smaller than
their respective phenotypic variance for all the traits. The correlation of some seedling trait was positive and
significant with each other. The estimates of coefficient of variability (CV %) ranged within 30.45 to 11.06. The
heritability percentage was found 92.66 as maximum while 16.64 as minimum. Genetic variation, heritability and
correlation estimates indicated that desiccation tolerance index and percent seedling recovery might be useful
while selecting for seedling parameters in wheat under water deficit conditions.
