Abstract
This research was conducted during the period 2019-2021 at the Institute of Agriculture in Karnobat, Bulgaria. In order to establish suitable parents for a selection of drought resistant varieties, twelve accessions of introduced winter oats were studied. The genetic similarity and distance of the accessions was determined by means of cluster analysis.
The highest drought resistance was exhibited by varieties Lustre, Image, Westfinnischer Schwarz, Powys, Lee and Fulghum . A good combination of drought resistance, grain weight per spike and 1000-grain weight was found for Lustre, Image and the Heros variety was from the accessions group with medium drought resistance. The cluster analysis revealed that the promising combinations can be obtained by crossing varieties from the most remote clusters, such as Lustre (first cluster) with varieties Panema, Roanoke, and Winter Turf from the third cluster.
Keywords: winter oats, accessions, drought resistance, productivity, cluster analysis