durum wheat

Understanding the effect of genetic factors controlling flowering time is crucial to fine-tune crop adaptation to each target environment and maximize yield.
A set of spring durum wheat inbred lines carrying all but one of the possible allelic combinations at Ppd-A1 and Ppd-B1 genes was developed through a collaboration between IRTA and CIMMYT. The collection was grown during several years at four sites at latitudes ranging from 19?N to 41?N in order to assess the effect of Ppd-1 genes on development, biomass production and allocation, as well as grain yield formation.
Environmental constraints were responsible for most of the observed variation for flowering time and yield components. Latitude was a main driver of flowering time, which was later in northern sites and associated with lower minimum temperatures before flowering. Data on environmental constraints explaining a large proportion of grains m-2 and kernel weight variation will be presented. The effect on flowering time of Ppd-A1 alleles conferring photoperiod insensitivity was enhanced at sites with average daylength before flowering lower than 12h. Ppd-A1 caused a stronger effect on flowering time than Ppd-B1, which was found responsible for differences in grains m-2, associated with longer photoperiods from double-ridge to terminal spikelet stages. These differences in grains m-2, however, did not result in higher yields due to kernel weight compensation. Late flowering genotypes carrying alleles conferring photoperiod sensitivity had greater biomass at anthesis but it did not confer superior yields. Early flowering times were associated with higher yields in autumn-sowing sites due to a large contribution to yield of current photosynthesis during grain filling. Early flowering genotypes tended to yield more due to higher kernel weights, and the interaction of allele combination x environment will be discussed in the context of using allelic information as environment-specific guideline in breeding efforts.

Durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) is a major stable crop and it represents a base of the Mediterranean diet. This region is subject to a Mediterranean climate, which is extremely unpredictable with severe changes in moisture and temperature occurring each crop season. This unpredictability is summarized by breeders as GxE and the identification of traits controlling this interaction is quintessential to ensure stability in production season after season. To study the genetics of yield stability, four RILs populations derived from elite x elite crosses were assessed for yield and 1,000-kernel weights across five diverging environments in Morocco and Lebanon. These 550 RILs were characterized with 4,909 polymorphic SNPs via genotyping by sequencing. A consensus map was derived by merging the individual genetic maps of each population. Finally, imputation was used to fill all the missing haplotypes and reach a reduction of missing data to below 8%. Several significant QTLs were identified to be linked to TKW, grain yield and a stability index, namely AMMI wide adaptation index (AWAI). A second approach to identify loci controlling stability was the use of a global panel of 288 elites, accessions and landraces tested in 15 diverging environment. Multi-locations data were compiled via GxE models to derive the AWAI stability index. In addition, this panel was characterized with 8,173 polymorphic SNPs via Axiom 35K array. Significant associations were identified for all traits, including QTLs unique to AWAI. The sum of the identified QTLs can now be pyramid via marker assisted selection and molecular designed crosses in order to obtain very stable cultivars.

Wheat is a major food crop in West Africa, but its production is significantly affected by severe heat. Unfortunately, these types of high temperatures are also becoming frequent in other regions where wheat is commonly grown. In an attempt to improve durum wheat tolerance to heat, a collection of 287 elite breeding lines, including several from both ICARDA and CIMMYT, was assessed for response to heat stress in two irrigated sites along the Senegal River: Fanaye, Senegal and Kaedi, Mauritania during 2014-2015, and 2015-2016 winter seasons. The maximum recorded grain yield was 5t ha-1, which was achieved after just 90 days from sowing to harvesting. Phenological traits (heading, maturity and grain filling period) and yield components (1000-kernel weight, spike density and biomass) had also large phenotypic variation and a significant effect on grain yield performance. This panel was genotyped by 35K Axiom to generate 8,173 polymorphic SNPs. Genomic scans identified a total of 34 significant association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and traits across the four environments, including 15 related to phenological adaptation, 12 controlling grain yield components, and seven linked to grain yield per se. The identification of these genomic regions can now be used to design targeted crosses to pyramid heat tolerance quantitative trait loci (QTL), while the SNPs underlying these QTL can be deployed to accelerate selection process facilitated by DNA-aided breeding.

The recent emergence of new widely virulent and aggressive strains of rusts (particularly stripe and stem rust) is threatening Italian durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) production, especially under the trend of higher temperature and humidity. A big effort has been undertaken to explore the genetic variability for resistance to these fungal pathogens and discovering novel resistance genes. In particular, a wide set of tetraploid wheat lines was genotyped with several thousands of SNP markers and used for association mapping. This large collection consisted of a group of durum wheat cultivars, produced from the beginning of the last century up to now, a collection of wild emmer wheats (T. dicoccoides), and lines belonging to other wild and domesticated tetraploid subspecies, as a large untapped source of genetic diversity. In a tight cooperation with the University of Minnesota, this collection was evaluated for reaction to several races of stem and stripe rust pathogens in both controlled greenhouse and field conditions. Among the genotypes belonging to the collection are parents of segregating populations which were used for the validation of mapping results. Novel resistance loci were identified, that can be incorporated into new durum varieties through breeding programs. The QTLs found in this study, together with those available in literature, were projected to the recently sequenced durum wheat genome in order to define more precisely the chromosome regions and candidate genes involved in resistance to rusts. Lines which were resistant to multiple races of rust pathogens were also found among both T. dicoccoides and durum wheat cultivars as a source of resistance genes, whose cloning will be undertaken based on the results here obtained.
This study was supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with the special grant RES-WHEAT.