Characterization of wheat landraces and commercial cultivars based on morpho-phenological and agronomic traits

Abstract

Wheat landraces are valuable genetic resource for diversity and specific adaptation to local environmental conditions as well as increasing agronomic traits in breeding programs. Admittedly, this type of genotypes has become more crucial to face the challenges of recent climate change. The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity among Egyptian bread wheat landraces and commercial cultivars based on morpho-phenological and agronomic characters. Thirty-two wheat landraces were collected from eleven Egyptian provinces through collecting trips during 1987 to 1999 and, in addition, three commercial cultivars were evaluated all for fifteen qualitative and quantitative characters. Wide genetic diversity was detected based on evaluated morphological characters was observed among the landraces compared to commercial cultivars. Various landraces exhibited strong glaucosity on flag leaf, culm and ear, which is crucial character especially under dry and hot cultivation conditions as Mediterranean region. Furthermore, considerable variation among tested genotypes was demonstrated on the basis of yield-related traits and they were classified into four groups (A–D) from very high-yielding to low-yielding genotypes. Wheat landraces number 3, 8, 14, 27, 29, 33 and 35 exhibited superiority for earliness, grain yield/plant and its components compared to commercial cultivars (number 18, 19 and 20). The association among morpho-phenological and agronomic characters was studied according to principal component analysis. The evaluated characters were divided into four groups. Certain morphological characters (coleoptiles anthocyanin coloration and awns or scurs at tip of ear length) alongside the phenological characters (days to heading and maturity) and certain agronomic characters (plant height and 1000-grain weight) displayed strong association with grain yield/plant. Furthermore, estimated broad sense heritability was high for plant height, number of grains/spike, 1000-grain weight, days to heading, moderate for days to maturity and grain yield/plant presented and low for number of spikes/plant.