Balanced below- and above-ground growth improved yield and water productivity by cultivar renewal for winter wheat

Abstract

Breeding cultivars that can maintain high production and water productivity (WP) under various growing conditions would be important for mitigating freshwater shortage problems. Experiments were carried out to assess the changes in yield and WP of different cultivars by breeding and traits related to the changes using tubes with 1.05 m depth and 19.2 cm inner diameter buried in the field located in the North China Plain. Six winter wheat cultivars released from the 1970s to 2010s were assessed under three water levels for three seasons. The results indicated that yield was on average improved by 19.9% and WP by 21.5% under the three water levels for the three seasons for the cultivar released in the 2010s as compared with that released in the 1970s. The performance of the six cultivars was relatively stable across the experimental duration. The improvement in yield was mainly attributed to the maintenance of higher photosynthetic capacity during the reproductive growth stage and greater above-ground biomass accumulation. These improvements were larger under wet conditions than that under dry conditions, indicating that the yield potential was increased by cultivar renewal. Traits related to yield and WP improvements included the increased harvest index and reduced root: shoot ratio. New cultivars reduced the redundancy in root proliferation in the topsoil layer, which did not compromise the efficient utilization of soil moisture but reduced the metabolic input in root growth. Balanced above- and below-ground growth resulted in a significant improvement in root efficiency at grain yield level up to 40% from the cultivars released in the 1970s to those recently released. The results from this study indicated that the improved efficiency in both the above- and below-parts played important roles in enhancing crop production and resource use efficiency.

Selection of M5 mutant lines of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for agronomic traits and biomass allocation under drought stress and non-stressed conditions

“…High-shoot biomass promotes high photosynthetic area and enhanced radiation use efficiency ( Li et al., 2022 ). Shoot biomass is a crucial component for drought tolerance breeding.…”

A scrutiny of plasticity management in irrigated wheat systems under CMIP6 earth system models (case study: Golestan Province, Iran)

“…These variables contribute to the proper grain yield, indirectly enhancing the WP. The integral role of biomass accumulation after the anthesis phase for obtaining high wheat grain production was revealed under water stress conditions (Liu et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2021), promoting the WP in prone areas (Li et al, 2022).…”

Exploring the trade‐off between individual fitness and community performance of wheat crops using simulated canopy shade

“…Another essential aspect of community performance we did not address in the current study relates to below‐ground competition. Reduced root competition was shown to be associated with cooperation and higher production among Arabidopsis and wheat plants (Li et al, 2022; Wuest et al, 2022; Zhu et al, 2019); thus, future studies on community performance will likely benefit from investigating the architecture and biomass allocation to roots. Taken as a whole, we found that individual plant fitness and community performance are associated with distinct and conflicting plant behaviours.…”