Forty one wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)genotypes were studied for days to booting, days to heading, plant height at vegetative, plant height at maturity, days to 50% anthesis, days to 100% anthesis, flag leaf senescence, days to physiological maturity, peduncle length, effective tillers, spikelet's length, grain per spike, biomass ,harvest index, sterility percentage, thousand grain weight and grain yield in random complete block design at terai, Nepal with the objective to identify superior genotypes after clustering them based on their genetic diversity in performance. Result of multivariable analysis revealed that 41 wheat genotypes formed four clusters. Cluster 4 and 2 had highest value of effective tiller, spike length, grain per spike, thousand grain weight, biomass, harvest index ,grain yield and lowest value days to heading, days to booting ,days to anthesis and sterility percentage. Cluster 3 had high days to booting, days to heading, days to 50% and 100% anthesis, days to flag leaf senescence and low in plant height at maturity, thousand grain weight ,harvest index and grain yield. Considering of multivariable analysis and other agronomic performance wheat genotypes HD 1982 and Pitic 62 may be utilized as high yielding genotypes in Terai condition of Nepal.

Drought stress is seen as the major abiotic stress in the modern day agriculture and hinders crop germination and seedling establishment and maize suffers the problem more as a summer season crop. Priming is a physiological method to overcome such deleterious effect of water stress with the main aim of increasing the germination of seed. A lab experiment was therefore performed with maize seed priming using Mannitol @ 0%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% (w/v) concentrations subjected to germination under induced drought of 0 Mpa, 0.15 Mpa, 0.5 MPa, 1.0 MPa and 1.7 MPa using NaCl. The experiment was laid in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications. Priming with mannitol reduced the Mean Germination Time (MGT); the best result obtained in seeds primed with 2% mannitol. However, the final germination count, Relative Water Content (RWC) and root and shoot length remained unaltered. Germination activities reduced with increasing moisture stress. The study indicated that priming with mannitol could improve the speed of germination in maize seeds.

Forty-one wheat genotypes were tested in randomized complete block design with three replications at experimental farm of Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science Paklihawa, Rupendehi, Nepal in 2014 spring season. The objective of this study was undertaken to estimate the correlation and path coefficient of yield and its contributing traits The data showed that the grain yield had significant associated with biomass and significant correlation with number of effective tillers (0.36*), thousand grain weight (0.376*) and harvest index (0.37*). Path coefficient analysis revealed maximum positive direct contribution towards yield by biomass (0.94) and harvest index (0.3).The study suggested that these traits may serve as effective selection attributes during breeding program for yield improvement in wheat.

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