Yasenka’ is a new word in obtaining the ‘golden grain’ of durum wheat

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to develop a new drought-resistant initial material, adapted to local conditions and spring durum wheat varieties on its basis. Due to the method of intraspecific hybridization and individual selection, there has been developed the spring durum wheat variety ‘Yasenka’ in the F5 hybrid combination obtained from crossing the varieties ‘Lilek x Nikolasha’. The developed variety is short-stemmed, middle maturing, resistant to drought and lodging. Its potential productivity is high, due to the maximum yield of 6.44 tons per hectare obtained in 2017 when sowing after peas. On average, over three years of competitive variety testing (2015–2017), its yield was 6.02 tons per hectare, which is higher than that of the varieties ‘Volnodonskaya’ on 1.08 and ‘Nikolasha’ on 0.40 tons per hectare. There has been found an advantage in terms of productivity over other varieties when sowing at a later date. Grain and pasta quality indicators are high. When evaluating grain according to the international standard ISO 21415-2, the variety ‘Yasenka’ showed a high Gluten Index (94) and a Minolta color index “b” (30), which corre- sponds to the world quality level. Under natural conditions, it is characterized by field resistance to the main leaf fungal diseases. Against the background of artificial infection, there has been established high resistance to head smut, powdery mildew and hard smut, resistance to septoria blotch and brown rust, moderate susceptibility to head blight. The variety has been included into the State List of Breeding Achievements of the Russian Federation since 2018 and it’s protected by the patent of the Russian Federation.