Multivariate drought responses of North-African durum wheat varieties

Abstract

With this report, we share the raw data of our experiments integrating controlled-environment phenomics to assess the drought response of ten durum wheat genotypes. These include the Tunisian landraces (Mahmoudi and Chili), 7 improved cultivars (Dhahbi, INRAT100, Karim, Khiar, Maali, Razzek, Salim) and the reference genotype ‘Svevo’. The plants were grown to maturity under well-watered or long-term drought conditions, enabling a comprehensive assessment of growth, yield components, root architecture, physiological traits, and reaction norm plasticity. We aim to identify phenotypic indicators that best discriminate against drought-tolerant performance by explicitly quantifying phenotypic plasticity (reaction norms) across key traits and linking these responses to transcriptional programs. The excel tables attached to this experimental report contains 27 sheets of phenotypical and physiological traits measured on the ten durum wheat cultivars grown either in pots or in rhizothron as well as the list of differentially expressed genes under drought compared to control conditions.