Abstract
Understanding the interaction between genotype performance and the target environment is the key to improving genetic gain, particularly in the context of climate change. Wheat production is seriously compromised in agricultural regions affected by water and heat stress, such as the Mediterranean basin. Moreover, wheat production may be also limited by the nitrogen availability in the soil. We have sought to dissect the agronomic and physiological traits related to the performance of 12 high-yield European bread wheat varieties under Mediterranean rainfed conditions and different levels of N fertilization during two contrasting crop seasons. Grain yield was more than two times higher in the first season than the second season and was associated with much greater rainfall and lower temperatures. However, the nitrogen effect was rather minor. Genotypic effects existed for the two seasons. While several of the varieties from central/northern Europe yielded more than those from southern Europe during the optimal season, the opposite trend occurred in the dry season. The varieties from central/northern Europe were associated with delayed phenology and a longer crop cycle, while the varieties from southern Europe were characterized by a shorter crop cycle but comparatively higher duration of the reproductive period, associated with an earlier beginning of stem elongation and a greater number of ears per area. However, some of the cultivars from northern Europe maintained a relatively high yield capacity in both seasons. Thus, KWS Siskin from the UK exhibited intermediate phenology, resulting in a relatively long reproductive period, together with a high green area throughout the crop cycle.
Highlights
There is an increasing demand for food production as a result of world population growth (Prasad et al, 2008; Holman et al, 2016; Kefauver et al, 2017)
Our results provide clues not just on the traits associated with the genetic advance of bread wheat varieties across Europe and, more importantly, on reports on the comparative performance under contrasting Mediterranean conditions
While the lack of drought stress in central/northern Europe has led to optimization of traits, such as a longer crop cycle, including delayed time to anthesis and later maturity, the frequency of water and heat stress in southern European regions has led to increases in the reproductive period with regard to the total crop duration, increasing the number of ears per area in order to guarantee grain yield
Summary
There is an increasing demand for food production as a result of world population growth (Prasad et al, 2008; Holman et al, 2016; Kefauver et al, 2017). The main causes of differences in crop yield are due to frequent heat and drought stresses in southern Europe and low temperatures in northern Europe, together with soil nutritional deficiencies (Wang and Frei, 2011; Senapati and Semenov, 2020), which are mainly related to nitrogen availability (Savin et al, 2015) It is increasingly common for agricultural regions, such as the European Mediterranean, to be affected by water and/or thermal stress due to climate change (Soriano et al, 2018; Senapati and Semenov, 2020). It is important to optimize the use of nitrogen through the adoption of strategies that benefit farmers economically and reduce environmental impacts, directing farmers toward the adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices (Gastal et al, 2015; Kefauver et al, 2017; Vicente et al, 2019)
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