Diminishing water resources as a result of excessive use of water for irrigation and climate change posture a severe global threat to food security. Herein, an experiment was conducted to determine the selection criteria for drought-tolerant bread wheat genotypes at the seedling stage using morphological and photosynthetic pigmentation-related traits. A panel of 105 wheat landraces, historical Pakistani varieties, and advance breeding lines were evaluated under normal and drought stress using factorial completely randomized design. The root length, fresh weight, dry weight, cell membrane thermo-stability, and chlorophyll b were positively correlated among themselves under both normal and stress conditions. Hence, selection of any one of these traits enhances the performance of other traits. The shoot length was non-significant and negatively associated with all other studied characters except relative water content. The results suggested that selection for shoot length could not improve genetic gain for drought tolerance. Out of 10 principal components (PCs), the first three PCs were showed significant genetic variation under both conditions. The first three PCs showed 74.6% and 76% cumulative genetic variation under normal and drought conditions, respectively. Based on PCA, 10 drought-tolerant and five drought-susceptible genotypes were identified. Overall results suggested that selection for root length, fresh weight, dry weight, cell membrane thermo-stability, and chlorophyll b at the seedling stage would improve genetic gain for drought tolerance. The outperforming genotypes under drought stress conditions can be useful in future wheat breeding programs, and early selection for the traits recommended in this study will be effective for developing high-yielding and drought-tolerant wheat varieties.

| The present research work was undertaken from 2013 to 2016 to evaluate the efficacy of different phosphorus (P) rates and planting geometry for the successful garlic production under saline environment. The experimental design was split-plot with three repeats. Three planting geometry (10cm x 20cm, 15cm x 20cm and 20cm x 20cm) and four phosphorus levels i.e. (i) control (no phosphorus), (ii) P (60 kg ha -1 ) recommended dose (RD), (iii) 125% P of RD (75 kg ha -1 ) and (iv) 150% P of RD (90 kg ha -1 ) were used. Observations included were; plant height, bulb mass, bulb diameter, cloves bulb -1 and bulb yield. Data revealed that phosphorus @ 125% of RD with planting geometry 15cm x 20cm recorded maximum yield and yield attributes with higher economic returns, therefor, under saline-sodic conditions it is proposed as a most cost-effective management practice for garlic cultivation.