Identification of bread wheat, durum wheat and barley cultivars adapted to dry areas of Southern Italy

Abstract

Among the cultivars of bread wheat, durum wheat and barley grown in the South of Italy, genetic variation for adaptation to the high temperature and drought stress conditions typical of the Mediterranean environment has been found.The basic data have been extrapolated from 5 years of Italian national network cultivar trials, where 20-30 cultivars were grown in replicated plot trials in 30-50 locations per year, including some where stress strongly affected grain yield.After careful identification of the most representative years and testing sites it was possible to characterise the cultivars on the basis of the grain yield in stress conditions and the Fischer & Maurer (1978) susceptibility index and to find genotypic differences sufficiently repeatable in years.The cultivars giving the best yield under stress associated with low susceptibility indices were in bread wheat:

Evaluation of field and laboratory predictors of drought and heat tolerance in winter cereals

“…According to our interpretation, the best cultivars for the Mediterranean climate are those presenting the highest grain yield under stress coupled with a low susceptibility index (Gavuzzi et al 1993). The limited number of cultivars of each species included in this experiment hampers the possibility to draw general conclusions based on correlations between yield performance and physiological traits; however, some trends can be delineated.…”

“…The lack of univocal relationships between the ranking of cultivars based on yield under stress and the ranking based on physiological tests in our experiment may partially derive from the reduced number of cultivars examined within each species; moreover, in our target environment of southern Italy, stress intensity is generally lower than in other Mediterranean areas. The yield potential of cultivars selected for northern areas is still expressed, and therefore, the presence of favourable gene combinations sustaining yield can mask the beneficial effects of specific physiological adaptive traits like those identified with our tests (Gavuzzi et al 1993).…”

“…characterizing cultivar adaptation to stressful conditions (Fischer and Maurer 1978;Blum 1988;Ceccarelli 1988;Gavuzzi et al 1993). However, in stressful environments, yield per se is not always the most suitable or easiest selection trait and an approach based on evaluation of some physiological traits involved in stress tolerance was proposed (Blum 1989).…”

“…In a previous study (Gavuzzi et al 1993) we were able to characterize a group of barley, bread wheat and durum wheat cultivars on the basis of the grain yield in stress conditions and of the susceptibility index of Fischer and Maurer (1978). A selected group of cultivars of the three species was included in the present study.…”

Aiuminium tolerance of durum wheat germplasm

“…It is an important commercial crop in high-yielding Mediterranean environments (Pecetti et al ., 1992 ;Josephides, 1993 ;Motzo et al ., 1993) especially in Italy (Gavuzzi et al ., 1993 ;Joppa, 1993) . The Macedonian durum wheat breeding program is geared toward producing cultivars suitable for utilising full potential of such environments .…”