Abstract
Breeding wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for high nitrogen use efficiency while maintaining adequate yield, is widely accepted as one of the approaches to maximise farmers’ revenue and minimise pollution risk. However, due to random hybridization events during evaluation and selective breeding for high yield, genetic diversity of existing bread wheat is narrowed down. The present study was conducted to investigate the nitrogen use efficiency and its components of ancient wheat species, a potential source to expand the genetic diversity of bread wheat. Three field experiments were carried out in 2012, 2013 and 2014 at Sutton Bonington Campus, University of Nottingham, UK. Ten genotypes belonging to einkorn, emmer, spelt and modern bread wheat were used as genetic materials of the experiments and three nitrogen levels were compared. Nitrogen uptake efficiency, nitrogen utilisation efficiency and nitrogen use efficiency were calculated at harvest. Nitrogen use efficiency among genotypes varied significantly and bread wheat recorded the highest value followed by spelt, emmer and einkorn. However, in general, nitrogen uptake efficiency was high in emmer and spelt compared to bread wheat. Nitrogen utilisation efficiency of bread wheat was always higher than ancient wheat genotypes resulting in high nitrogen use efficiency. Nitrogen supply has a negative relationship with nitrogen uptake efficiency. According to the results, it can be concluded that ancient wheat genotypes uptake more nitrogen hence high nitrogen uptake efficiency when compared to modern bread wheat. However, the ability to utilise nitrogen in the plants to develop grains is high in modern bread wheat.
Highlights
Dependence of food production on nitrogen (N) fertiliser increases significantly with the influence of global population growth
Nitrogen uptake efficiency (NUpE) of emmer 2 was higher than all other genotypes (Figure 1) (P
It can be concluded that ancient wheat genotypes have the ability to uptake more nitrogen high NUpE when compared to modern bread wheat
Summary
Dependence of food production on nitrogen (N) fertiliser increases significantly with the influence of global population growth. Without N fertiliser in agriculture, it is not possible to fulfil the current demand of food energy and protein. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the major arable crop with a total annual production of about 15 Mt in the UK. Wheat requires large inputs of fertiliser N to achieve high yield under intensive cultivation. All applied fertiliser is not taken up by the crop and large amounts are lost to the environment. Breeding crops for high N use efficiency (NUE; grain dry matter yield per unit availability of N from soil and/or fertiliser) while maintaining acceptable yield, is widely accepted as one of the approaches to maximise farmers’ revenue and minimise pollution risk by reducing N fertiliser application
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