• Ansar Abbas
• Aneela Bashir

Sunflower (Helianthus annus L.) is the main oilseed crop throughout the world. Pakistan facing the problem of edible oil shortage. Drought is the major abiotic stress that limits the crop production at drastic level. Screening of tolerant accessions from available germplasm is the basic step in plant breeding. So, there is need to develop drought tolerant plants. Genetically diverse sunflower accessions will be grown at research area of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Response of ten sunflower accessions were tested against PEG (Poly Ethylene Glycol) mediated drought stress at germination and seedling stage. The experiment was laid out by completely randomized design with factorial structured treatments. Three treatments i.e., T1= zero (control), T2= -1.33MPa, T3 = -1.62MPa were developed by using 5 and 10% of PEG-6000. Principal component analysis showed that Accessions A21,A22,A23 and A-24 performed well and showed genetic variability among these accessions and can be used for further breeding programs.

Drought stress, poly Ethylene glycol (PEG-6000), principal component analysis, seedling traits, sunflower accessions

"Screening of Morphological traits in sunflower (Helianthus annus. L) under normal and drought stress", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.10, Issue 11, page no.b25-b30, November-2023, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2311105.pdf

"Screening of Morphological traits in sunflower (Helianthus annus. L) under normal and drought stress", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.10, Issue 11, page no. ppb25-b30, November-2023, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2311105.pdf