Abstract
Stem water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) are an important source of temporary carbohydrate reserve in cool-season cereals. Genotypic variation in stem WSC concentration in wheat at anthesis is often positively associated with grain weight and yield in water-limited environments. In this study we have examined the relationship between dry matter content (DMC, dry weight per unit of fresh weight) and WSC concentration in field-grown bread wheat. Strong correlations (r = 0.92–0.95) were observed between DMC and WSC concentration in the stem and leaf sheath from the top two or three internodes of recombinant inbred lines from a cross between Seri M82 and Babax, at anthesis or 1 week after anthesis, in several field experiments. This strong correlation was also observed in diverse genotypes grown under rainfed or irrigated conditions. DMC and WSC concentration were also positively correlated in the whole above-ground biomass of wheat at anthesis (r = 0.74–0.91). Measurement of stem and leaf sheath DMC and WSC concentration in a small number of samples would allow the rapid prediction of WSC concentrations in a large number of field samples with reasonable accuracy, as demonstrated in a small dataset in this study. These data indicate that DMC can serve cereal breeding as a rapid and low-cost selection tool for genotypic ranking of WSC concentrations in breeding populations.
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