Ontogenetic-based sequential path analysis of grain yield and its related traits in several winter wheat cultivars

Abstract

Studies that provide representative insights for determining yield through its related traits during the ontogeny of modern cultivars subjected to sources of environmental variation are limited for different crops, including wheat. Most of the empirical evidence on the relationships between the yield of small grain cereal crops and its contributing traits has been obtained under dry or semidry conditions. The aims of this paper were to (1) illustrate how an path analysis can be used to clarify and interpret the relationships between grain yield (GY), yield components, and other yield-related traits of 25 winter wheat cultivars subjected to sources of environmental variation and (2) determine how the yield-related traits contribute to the yield variation. The data used in this analysis were generated from multi-environment trials across wheat-growing areas in Poland. Using Ward's clustering procedure was capable of identifying the most critical predictor traits of the yield components and their contributions to cultivar-focused GY variation. Our findings document, confirm, and improve the basic biological understanding of how to grow modern wheat cultivars for high GY through effectively stimulating the improvement of yield-related traits through the optimization of developmental stagebased agronomic strategies. Our results confirmed empirically that modern European wheat cultivars grown in a temperate climate require favorable conditions, the use of appropriate N fertilizer and growth regulators, and the application of fungicide to protect against leaf diseases and to provide conditions that effectively increase the time to anthesis, the Leaf Area Index per spike at anthesis, and the grain filling duration, and reduce plant height and flag leaf disease severity, thus leading to a high GY. A high yield level is obtained by the performance of preferred yield-related traits that can maintain the three yield components at relatively high levels.

Impact of cultivar and environment soil suitability on the contribution of yield components to grain yield variation in spring wheat

“…In unfavorable soil conditions, water deficit affects the limitation or cessation of shoot formation in the tillering phase, as does P deficiency, as confirmed for wheat (Rodríguez, Keltjens, & Goudriaan, 1998) and barley (Prystupa, Savin, & Slafer, 2004). As Mądry et al (2015) showed, the number of tillers was highly responsive to the environment and had a significant positive effect on the SN. Tillering intensity directly affects not only the SN per unit area but also the plant growth rate, soil cover, light absorption (Kirby, 2002), and likely the water intake (Dreccer et al, 2013).…”

Lack of Linkages among Fruiting Depth, Weight, and Maturity in Irrigated Truffle Fungi Marks the Complexity of Relationships among Morphogenetic Stages

“…Cultural practices (e.g., irrigation, soil tillage, and peat amendments) reduce the impact of stressful, limiting factors (e.g., plant competition for light, rhizosphere diversity, nutrients or space, summer aridity or high soil resistance to penetration). In herbaceous crops, compensating mechanisms among yield-related traits are typically higher in strong-stress than in low-stress conditions [ 27 ]. It would be interesting to test whether our results can be generalized to high-stress environments such as rainfed orchards or wild truffle stands.…”

“…The causal relationships among FB development characters were evaluated using the d-sep method of path analysis [ 25 ], with the aid of the R package ggm [ 26 ]. Path analysis has been applied to study causal patterns between morphological, physiological, and ecological attributes in plant biology and agronomy [ 25 , 27 ]. The d-sep method judges if a particular model is consistent with the experimental data.…”

Influence of Genotype, Crop Management, and Environment on Winter Wheat Grain Yield Determination Based on Components of Yield

“…It is likely that in the favorable group, there was an effect of negative compensation between the number of spikes per square meter and the grain number per spike. The significant and negative direct effects of SN on NG/S are associated with an earlier appearance of SN and the subsequent appearance of NG/S (Mądry et al, 2015). Donaldson et al (2001) and García del Moral et al (2005) found that a higher SN induced a large decrease in NG/S in bread and durum wheat, which was primarily the result of a negative interrelationship between tiller production and apical development.…”