Development and application of a relative soil water content – transpiration efficiency curve for screening high water use efficiency wheat cultivars

Abstract

Improving water use efficiency (WUE) has been proven to be a prosperous way to produce more grain in drought-prone areas. Transpiration efficiency (TE) has been proposed as a criterion for screening cultivars with high WUE. This study quantifies the relations of TE to relative soil water content (RSWC) gradients using pot experiments and evaluates the capability of the relations of TE-RSWC on assessing the cultivar performance in field yield and WUE. Twelve winter wheat cultivars were grown at 6 RSWC, 12.1, 24.2, 36.3, 48.4, 60.5, and 72.6% of field capacity (FC = 24.8 g/g) for 33 days in tightly sealed pots preventing soil evaporation. The results showed that TE decreased power functionally following the increase in RSWC for all cultivars. The relationship could be described as TE = TE FC × (RSWC) b, named TE–RSWC curve. This curve could be divided into an orderly area where the rank of cultivars was stable when RSWC ≤ 12.1% or RSWC ≥ 72.6% and a disorderly area where the rank was unstable when 12.1% < RSWC < 72.6%. To assess the consistency of pot TE to field yield and WUE, the same 12 varieties were grown under rainfed and two irrigations (75 mm at the jointing and flowering stages, respectively). TE FC was found to be positively related to field yield and WUE independent of irrigation. TE measured near the wilting point was negatively related to field yield and WUE. These results indicated that TE FC could be used as a surrogate for screening high-yield and high-WUE cultivars. The consistency and inconsistency can be attributed to the orderly area and disorderly area of the TE–RSWC curves.

TabHLH27 orchestrates root growth and drought tolerance to enhance water use efficiency in wheat

“…The 204 wheat accessions were evaluated at seedling stage and reproductive stage. Cultivars were exposed to WW and WL treatment following reported experiment procedures (Qiao et al ., 2022), and average root dry weight of each accession was measured. The spikelets per spike was investigated in field at Shijiazhuang (37.85° N, 114.82° E) and Dezhou (37.43° N, 116.35° E) during year 2019-2022.…”

“…For the observation of plant growth status under moderate drought conditions, one-week old uniform seedlings of KN199, CR1 and CR2 were subjected to drought stress following previous reported experimental procedures with some modification (Qiao et al, 2022). A soil moisture content of 15% and 4% was used as a control and drought conditions, respectively.…”

TabHLH27 orchestrates root growth and drought tolerance to enhance water use efficiency in wheat

“…For the observation of plant growth status under moderate drought conditions, 1‐week old uniform seedlings of KN199, CR1 and CR2 were exposed to drought stress following previous reported experimental procedures with some modification (Qiao et al, 2022). A soil moisture content of 15% and 4% was utilized as control and drought conditions, respectively.…”

“…The 204 wheat accessions were evaluated at both the seedling stage and reproductive stage. The seedlings were subjected to WW and WL treatment following established experimental protocols (Qiao et al, 2022). The average root dry weight of each accession was measured to assess drought tolerance at the seedling stage.…”

Yield Response and Leaf Gas Exchange of Sicilian Wheat Landraces

“…Wheat grain yield is affected by limiting soil water availability. In this condition, the photosynthesis rate is reduced by the plant response to lower stomatal conductance with the aim of reducing water transpiration [19,[22][23][24][25][26]. Sicilian wheat landraces have demonstrated to be particularly adapted to non-optimal climatic conditions during anthesis and grain ripening stage and low-input agronomical practices [27,28], while the role of photosynthesis efficiency or stomatal conductance in achieving these results has yet to be assessed.…”