Identification of Climate-Smart Bread Wheat Germplasm Lines with Enhanced Adaptation to Global Warming

Anil Patidar; Mahesh C Yadav; Jyoti Kumari; Shailesh Tiwari; Gautam Chawla; Vijay Paul

doi:10.3390/plants12152851

Identification of Climate-Smart Bread Wheat Germplasm Lines with Enhanced Adaptation to Global Warming

Plants (Basel). 2023 Aug 2;12(15):2851. doi: 10.3390/plants12152851.

Authors

Anil Patidar^{1

2}, Mahesh C Yadav¹, Jyoti Kumari³, Shailesh Tiwari¹, Gautam Chawla⁴, Vijay Paul⁵

Affiliations

¹ Division of Genomic Resources, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi 110012, India.
² Post-Graduate School, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
³ Division of Germplasm Evaluation, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi 110012, India.
⁴ Division of Nematology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
⁵ Division of Plant Physiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.

Abstract

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is widely grown in sub-tropical and tropical areas and, as such, it is exposed to heatstress especially during the grain filling period (GFP). Global warming has further affected its production and productivity in these heat-stressed environments. We examined the effects of heatstress on 18 morpho-physiological and yield-related traits in 96 bread wheat accessions. Heat stress decreased crop growth and GFP, and consequently reduced morphological and yield-related traits in the delayed sown crop. A low heat susceptibility index and high yield stability were used for selecting tolerant accessions. Under heatstress, the days to 50% anthesis, flag-leaf area, chlorophyll content, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), thousand grain weight (TGW), harvest index and grain yield were significantly reduced both in tolerant and susceptible accessions. The reduction was severe in susceptible accessions (48.2% grain yield reduction in IC277741). The plant height, peduncle length and spike length showeda significant reduction in susceptible accessions, but a non-significant reduction in the tolerant accessions under the heatstress. The physiological traits like the canopy temperature depression (CTD), plant waxiness and leaf rolling were increased in tolerant accessions under heatstress. Scanning electron microscopy of matured wheat grains revealed ultrastructural changes in endosperm and aleurone cells due to heat stress. The reduction in size and density of large starch granules is the major cause of the yield and TGW decrease in the heat-stress-susceptible accessions. The most stable and high-yielding accessions, namely, IC566223, IC128454, IC335792, EC576707, IC535176, IC529207, IC446713 and IC416019 were identified as the climate-smart germplasm lines. We selected germplasm lines possessing desirable traits as potential parents for the development of bi-parent and multi-parent mapping populations.

Keywords: adaptation; bread wheat; climate-smart germplasm; global warming; heat tolerance.

Grants and funding

The first author is grateful to the Director of the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, for granting a senior research fellowship during Ph.D. study. This work was funded by the ICAR Network Project on National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture “Focused collection of climate-smart germplasm of rice and wheat, their valuation and genetic enhancement through pre-breeding for abiotic stress tolerance” with the scheme code 13921 and project number 1006607.