Harnessing landrace diversity empowers wheat breeding.

Harnessing genetic diversity in major staple crops through the development of new breeding capabilities is essential to ensure food security. Here we examined the genetic and phenotypic diversity of the A. E.

Enhancing crop yields through improvements in the efficiency of photosynthesis and respiration.

The rate with which crop yields per hectare increase each year is plateauing at the same time that human population growth and other factors increase food demand. Increasing yield potential ( ) of crops is vital to address these challenges. In this review, we explore a component of that has yet to be optimised - that being improvements in the efficiency with which light energy is converted into biomass ( ) via modifications to CO fixed per unit quantum of light (α), efficiency of respiratory ATP production ( ) and efficiency of ATP use ( ).

Wheat photosystem II heat tolerance: evidence for genotype-by-environment interactions.

High temperature stress inhibits photosynthesis and threatens wheat production. One measure of photosynthetic heat tolerance is T - the critical temperature at which incipient damage to photosystem II (PSII) occurs. This trait could be improved in wheat by exploiting genetic variation and genotype-by-environment interactions (GEI).

Acclimation of leaf photosynthesis and respiration to warming in field-grown wheat.

Climate change and future warming will significantly affect crop yield. The capacity of crops to dynamically adjust physiological processes (i.e.

Predicting dark respiration rates of wheat leaves from hyperspectral reflectance.

Greater availability of leaf dark respiration (R ) data could facilitate breeding efforts to raise crop yield and improve global carbon cycle modelling. However, the availability of R data is limited because it is cumbersome, time consuming, or destructive to measure. We report a non-destructive and high-throughput method of estimating R from leaf hyperspectral reflectance data that was derived from leaf R measured by a destructive high-throughput oxygen consumption technique.

Linear discriminant analysis reveals differences in root architecture in wheat seedlings related to nitrogen uptake efficiency.

Root architecture impacts water and nutrient uptake efficiency. Identifying exactly which root architectural properties influence these agronomic traits can prove challenging. In this paper, approximately 300 wheat (Triticum aestivum) plants were divided into four groups using two binary classifications, high versus low nitrogen uptake efficiency (NUpE), and high versus low nitrate in the growth medium.

Phenotyping pipeline reveals major seedling root growth QTL in hexaploid wheat.

Seedling root traits of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) have been shown to be important for efficient establishment and linked to mature plant traits such as height and yield. A root phenotyping pipeline, consisting of a germination paper-based screen combined with image segmentation and analysis software, was developed and used to characterize seedling traits in 94 doubled haploid progeny derived from a cross between the winter wheat cultivars Rialto and Savannah.

Acclimation of leaf nitrogen to vertical light gradient at anthesis in wheat is a whole-plant process that scales with the size of the canopy.

Vertical leaf nitrogen (N) gradient within a canopy is classically considered as a key adaptation to the local light environment that would tend to maximize canopy photosynthesis. We studied the vertical leaf N gradient with respect to the light gradient for wheat (Triticum aestivum) canopies with the aims of quantifying its modulation by crop N status and genetic variability and analyzing its ecophysiological determinants. The vertical distribution of leaf N and light was analyzed at anthesis for 16 cultivars grown in the field in two consecutive seasons under two levels of N.

Anthesis date mainly explained correlations between post-anthesis leaf senescence, grain yield, and grain protein concentration in a winter wheat population segregating for flowering time QTLs.

The genetic variability of the duration of leaf senescence during grain filling has been shown to affect both carbon and nitrogen acquisition. In particular, maintaining green leaves during grain filling possibly leads to increased grain yield, but its associated effect on grain protein concentration has not been studied. The aim of this study was to dissect the genetic factors contributing to correlations observed at the phenotypic level between leaf senescence during grain filling, grain protein concentration, and grain yield in winter wheat.