Increasing human population places pressure on agriculture. To feed this population, two time increase in the current wheat production is needed. Today agriculture is becoming input intensive with more reliance on synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals to fulfil the feed demand of the growing numbers. Use of synthetic fertilizer since last few years is impacting the soil quality. In this scenario, the use of beneficial endophytic microbes is an attractive strategy to overcome the use of synthetic products. To investigate the effect of consortium application of endophytic bacteria and fungus on plant growth, grain yield moisture status, a pot experiment was conducted in different wheat lines. It comprised four treatments like control, application of bacterial strain Bacillus sp. MN54, fungal strain Trichoderma sp. MN6, and their consortium (Bacillus sp. MN54 + Trichoderma sp. MN6). The effect of consortium application was more prominent and significantly different from the sole application of bacteria and fungus. The results showed that with a consortium application of endophytic bacteria and fungus, there was 28.6, 4.3, -6.3 and -3.7% increases in flag leaf area, chlorophyll content, relative membrane permeability and water content respectively. Consortia of endophytic microbes also resulted in the yield enhancement through the betterment of various yield attributes like number of spikelet’s, grains per spike and grain yield per plant (32.2, 25.8 and 30.8%, respectively). So, consortia of endophytic microbes can greatly promote the progress of plants in dry land agriculture and increase the yield in an environmentally sustainable way.

The hybrid seeds obtained by crossing in wheats should be heavier and a greater number of grains per combination because of more variation and to created powerful plants for next year generations. Therefore, this study was conducted during the winter growing season of 2005-2006 in Transitional Zone Agricultural Research Institute in Eskişehir and to determine the hybrid seeds of single cross and three-way cross compared to each other for 10-grains weight (TGW) and grain number per combination (GC) in separately bread wheat and durum wheat. 224 F1s for single cross and 326 F1s for three-way cross in bread wheat and 56 F1s for single cross and 66 F1s for three-way cross in durum wheat were produced. According to results, GC and TGW in bread wheats were higher values than durum wheats both in single cross and three-way cross. The GC values in three-way cross had higher variation (68.9%) compared the others. The separately mean of GC and TGW of hybrids in single cross both in bread and durum wheat were lower than the means of hybrids in three-way cross (with ratios of 32% and 16.7%, respectively). In brief: three-way cross had more performance for studied traits in wheat hybrids compared to single cross. The reason of such an outcome can be demonstrated in the future by genetic studies.

Knowing the current and the potential production amount of wheat is essential to meet the growing needs. Yield is determined by many factors. The main factors that limit the potential yield are genetic characteristics, and climatic factors such as rainfall and radiation, and management. Wheat is mostly grown in non-irrigated areas in Turkey. The most significant factors that limit dry agriculture wheat production yield in the Mediterranean climatic type are rainfall and its distribution in the growing season. A steady increase in yield is observed in Turkey in recent years. Average annual wheat production is 20.6 million tons. The potential production in this work is determined as 54 million tons. The gap is about 33 million ton. The actual production is 39% of the potential production. The average yield of the Growing Season Rainfall (GSRF) 500 mm areas is 2.2 t ha-1, and the potential yield is 8.8 t ha-1. The gap between the actual yield and potential yield is quite large. The current yield between the areas (GSRF 500 mm) is very small. So it is difficult to explain the gap just because of the rainfall.

The aim of this research was to determine the most suitable extraction method for the available iron contents of calcareous soils in Trakya Region, Turkey. For this purpose ten calcareous soil samples were taken from research area and five extraction methods (Lindsay and Norvell, Wear and Evans, Olson, Soltanpur and Mehlich methods) were used and three biological indices (dry matter yield, Fe concentration, Fe uptake) were compared. The plant biological indices were determined with wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plant grown under greenhouse conditions. At the end of the experiment, the highest correlation coefficients (r) were determined between the 0.005 M DTPA + 0.01 M CaCl2 + 0.1 M TEA, 0.005 M DTPA + 1 M NH4HCO3 methods and the biological indices. The correlation coefficients (r) for the 0.005 M DTPA + 0.01 M CaCl2 + 0.1 M TEA method and the three biological indices were 0.648**, 0.780** and 0.656** respectively. For the 0.005 M DTPA + 1 M NH4HCO3 method, these coefficients were determined 0.595**, 0.637** and 0.625**, respectively. Consequently, these extraction methods were suggested for the determination of the available Fe contents of the calcareous soils in Trakya Region, Turkey.

In semi-arid regions, unfavorable weather conditions are the most important limiting factors for seed germination. The imbibed or germinating seeds in soil can be dried by hot and dry weather. Thus, seeds can largely lose their germination abilities until the next water uptake (called as ‘alatav’ in Turkish). Before drying, the time of the first water uptake by a seed may be more effective on seed viability at the second water uptake for germination. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to identify the first water uptake rates (WU) of seeds of three bread wheat genotypes (Bezotaja, Kirac and 13-BVD-4) per hour during 50 hours and their germination rates (GR) at the second water uptake after drying the seeds for 3-week in laboratory conditions. The results presented here indicated that the WU and GR were significantly affected by genotypes, imbibition time (T) and their interaction (1% probability level). There was also a significant negative correlation between the WU and GR (r** = –0.9295) at all times studied. Furthermore, the germination ability of Kirac lasted longest (for 38th hour) when the WU reached to 160.24%, and it was followed by Bezostaya and 13-BVD-4 genotypes (63.34% at 37th hour and 152.58% 34th hour, respectively).