Chlorophyll Meter: A Precision Agricultural Decision-Making Tool for Nutrient Supply in Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) Cultivation under Drought Conditions

Anteneh Agezew Melash; Bekir Bytyqi; Muhoja Sylivester Nyandi; Attila Miklós Vad; Éva Babett Ábrahám

doi:10.3390/life13030824

Chlorophyll Meter: A Precision Agricultural Decision-Making Tool for Nutrient Supply in Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) Cultivation under Drought Conditions

Life (Basel). 2023 Mar 17;13(3):824. doi: 10.3390/life13030824.

Authors

Anteneh Agezew Melash^{1

2}, Bekir Bytyqi¹, Muhoja Sylivester Nyandi¹, Attila Miklós Vad³, Éva Babett Ábrahám⁴

Affiliations

¹ Kálmán Kerpely Doctoral School of Crop Production and Horticultural Science, University of Debrecen, Böszörményi Street 138, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
² Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, Debark University, North Gondar, Debark P.O. Box 90, Ethiopia.
³ Institutes for Agricultural Research and Educational Farm, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
⁴ Institute of Crop Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural, Food Sciences and Environmental Management, University of Debrecen, Böszörményi Street 138, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary.

Abstract

How crop biodiversity adapts to drought conditions and enhances grain yield became the most important issue facing agronomists and plant breeders at the turn of the century. Variations in genetic response, inadequacy of nutrients in the soil, and insufficient access to nutrients are factors that aggravate drought stressors. The development of screening tools for identifying drought tolerance is important in the deployment of durum wheat varieties suited to drought-prone environments. An experiment was conducted to evaluate durum wheat varieties under a range of nutrient supplies in naturally imposed drought conditions. The treatments consisting of two nitrogen regimes (i.e., control and 60 kg ha^-1), four durum wheat varieties, and three types of nutrients (control, sulfur, and zinc) that were arranged in a split-split plot design with three replications. Both foliar-based sulfur and zinc fertilization were employed at the flag leaf stage, at a rate of 4 and 3-L ha^-1, respectively. The results showed a significant (p < 0.05) genetic variation in chlorophyll concentration, grain protein content, tillering potential, and leaf area index. Varieties that contained better leaf chlorophyll content had improved grain yield by about 8.33% under 60 kg/ha nitrogen. A combined application of nitrogen and zinc at flag leaf stage significantly improved grain yield of Duragold by about 21.3%. Leaf chlorophyll content was found to be a more important trait than spikes per m² to discriminate durum wheat varieties. Foliar application of sulfur increased the grain yield of drought-stressed plants by about 12.23%. Grain yield and protein content were strongly correlated with late-season SPAD readings. Significant (p < 0.05) correlation coefficients were obtained between normalized difference vegetation index, leaf area index, grain yield, and protein content with late-season chlorophyll content, revealing the importance of chlorophyll content in studying and identifying drought-tolerant varieties.

Keywords: chlorophyll meter; drought; durum wheat; leaf reflectance traits; nutrient supply; protein content; yield.

Abstract

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