Evaluation of oilseeed rape genotypes based on drought stress tolerance indices

Drought stress is a serious problem for agriculture, and raising crop yields under drought stress has always been a challenge. Oilseeed rape is a valuable source of edible oil in the world and the improvement of drought tolerance in Oilseeed rape could increase the cultivation area. In order to evaluate the effect of drought stress on oilseeed rape genotypes, this study was conduct with 38 oilseeed rape genotype of winter type considering drought tolerance indices and high yield genotypes under both normal and stress conditions. This study was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications in two separate experiments (normal and drought stress conditions) in the research farm of Seed and Plant Breeding Research Institute Karaj, Iran, from 2016 to 2017. Significant differences among oilseeed rape genotypes was observed using analysis of variance for drought tolerance indices. Based on the YP, the genotype G13 (5.924 t ha ^− 1 ) showed the highest yield, while the genotypes G10 (4.2 t ha ^− 1 ) displayed the highest YS. Furthermore, MP, GMP, STI and K1STI indices were identified as suitable indices that exhibited a strong correlation with YP and YS. Additionally, the result of principal component analysis, biplot and 3D plot confirmed that genotype G10 had the highest performance under both stress and normal conditions.