Abstract
Drought is the major environmental factor limiting wheat production worldwide. Developing novel cultivars with greater drought tolerance is the most viable solution to ensure sustainable agricultural production and alleviating threats to food-security. Here we established a core-collection of landraces and modern durum wheat cultivars (WheatME, n = 36), from the Middle East region (Jordan, Palestine and Israel) aiming at unlocking the genetic and morpho-physiological adaptation to semi-arid environment conditions. Interestingly, genetic analysis of the WheatME core-collection could not distinguish the landraces according to their country of origin. Field-based evaluation of the core-collection conducted across range of contrasting environmental conditions: Til-Palestine, Bet-Dagan-Israel and Irbid-Jordan with annual precipitation of 500 mm, 360 mm and 315 mm, respectively. The Til environment showed highest grain yield while the Irbid environment showed the lowest values. Analysis of variance showed a significant Genotype × Environment interaction for plant phenology traits (plant height and heading date) and productivity traits (1000-kernel weight, and grain yield). Principal component analysis showed three main cultivar groups: High yielding lines (modern durum cultivars, and landraces), tall late flowering landraces, and landraces with high grain weight. This knowledge could serve as basis for future breeding efforts to develop new elite cultivars adapted to the Mediterranean Basin’s semi-arid conditions.
Highlights
Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum (Desf.) MacKey; 2n = 4× = 28, genome BBAA) is an important grain-crop, occupying ~10% of the wheat growing area worldwide
Mediterranean Basin, durum wheat is mainly cultivated under rain-fed conditions and yields are highly affected by year-to-year and within year precipitation fluctuations
To face the challenges of increasing wheat production under projected climate change, wheat breeding requires a comprehensive exploration of potential genetic resources and an in-depth breeding requires a comprehensive exploration of potential genetic resources and an in-depth understanding of their underlying environmental adaptations
Summary
Durum (Desf.) MacKey; 2n = 4× = 28, genome BBAA) is an important grain-crop, occupying ~10% of the wheat growing area worldwide. Basin is the largest production area, and it is grown across North and East Africa, Europe, North. Durum wheat has a long history as part of the Mediterranean Basin diet with an array of products, such as pasta, bourghul couscous, and unleavened breads [2]. In the Mediterranean Basin, durum wheat is mainly cultivated under rain-fed conditions and yields are highly affected by year-to-year and within year precipitation fluctuations. Drought is the major and most prevalent environmental constraint in the Mediterranean Basin’s climate, limiting wheat productivity and causing devastating economic and sociological impacts. The ever-growing human population, loss of agricultural lands to urbanization, diminishing resource availability associated with climate change, all pose serious challenges to wheat breeding programs
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