Response of photosynthetic active radiation interception, dry matter accumulation, and grain yield to tillage in two winter wheat genotypes

Abstract

ABSTRACT To examine the effects of winter wheat genotypes on dry matter (DM) accumulation and grain yield (GY) under no-tillage conditions in North China Plain (NCP), a field experiment was conducted using the genotypes Tainong 18 (F) and Jimai 22 (J). Two tillage systems were tested, conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) during the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 winter wheat growing seasons. Genotypes and tillage systems were compared regarding DM accumulation, GY, leaf area index (LAI), photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) interception, and flag leaf fluorescence parameters. LAI, PAR interceptions, and flag leaf fluorescence parameters were significantly higher under CT than under NT conditions. This suggests that the efficiency of light harvesting by the PSII reaction center of leaves can increase due to CT. DM accumulation was significantly higher under CT than under NT. Spike DM accumulation was higher in F than in J in the heading and the filling stages. In both growing seasons, GY was significantly higher under CT than under NT, GY of NTF was significantly higher than that of NTJ, which was due to a significantly higher number of kernels per spike. This indicates that genotype F can compensate for a low GY due to NT.