Phenotyping Latin American Open-Pollinated Varieties of Popcorn for Environments with Low Water Availability

Abstract

Drought is a common abiotic stress in tropical and subtropical regions that limits the growth and development of agricultural crops, mainly impacting grain yield. Acting through plant breeding is the most viable alternative for obtaining genotypes more tolerant of environments with stress. This work aims to select popcorn genotypes for environments with drought and to identify discriminating traits for the evaluation of drought tolerance in popcorn germplasm. Fifteen Latin American populations of popcorn were evaluated in water stress (WS) and well-watered (WW) conditions. The evaluated traits were based in morpho-agronomic, physiological and radicular descriptors. Data were submitted to individual and joint ANOVA and GT Biplot analysis. Variability was detected between populations for all traits in both conditions. The drought caused a reduction of 30.61% and 3.5% in grain yield and popping expansion, respectively. Based in GT biplot analysis, 880POP was the most stable in WS and WW, being indicated as a promising population for cultivation in environments with water limitation. This study is going to allow the establishment of a collection of great importance to maize germplasm and to provide information to facilitate the process of selection in breeding programs focused on drought tolerance.

Supporting Physiological Trait for Indirect Selection for Grain Yield in Drought-Stressed Popcorn

“…For popcorn, the reduction is due to a lower number of grains produced per ear, as well as a lower 100-grain weight [ 21 ]. Certainly, the pollen viability and zygote formation are sensitive to water deficit [ 38 , 39 ], reducing the number of grains produced, as confirmed in the cited cases.…”

“…Marked reductions of more than 10% were observed for the traits 100-grain weight and prolificacy. When water restriction occurred during grain filling, a reduction in grain weight was observed, and WS before anthesis decreased the number of grains [ 20 ] due to the effect of water restriction on pollen viability and zygote formation [ 38 , 39 ]. During maize development, the number of ears per plant (prolificacy) was determined in stages V6–V8 [ 27 , 40 ].…”

Phenotyping new rapeseed lines based on multiple traits: Application of GT and GYT biplot analyses

“…The GT and GYT biplot methods are excellent tools for graphical examination of superior genotypes, traits, and grouping of genotypes and traits compared with conventional statistical techniques such as ANOVA, mean comparisons, linear correlations, and other complex methods like path coefficient analysis (Gholizadeh & Dehghani, 2016 ). The GT biplot method has previously been used to compare genotypes based on multiple traits and to understand the interrelationship between yield and traits (morphological, physiological, and quality characters) in different crops (Dolatabad et al, 2010 ; Malik et al, 2014 ; Santana, Flores, et al, 2021 ; Santana, Ramos, et al, 2021 ; Santos et al, 2021 ; Yan & Rajcan, 2002 ). A potential constraint of the GT biplot method is that it may fail to explain most of the variation and therefore fail to display all patterns of the data and this is most likely to occur with large datasets, small main effects, and complex interactions.…”

“…Among the different methods, the genotype × trait (GT) and genotype × yield × trait (GYT) biplot analyses are advantageous graphical tools that prepare efficient overview of different traits and genotypes relationships. The GT biplot has previously been used in different crops to determine the association between different traits and genotypes such as rapeseed (Dehghani et al, 2008 ), sorghum (Mukondwa et al, 2021 ), corn (Santana, Flores, et al, 2021 ; Santos et al, 2021 ; Shojaei et al, 2020 ), white soybean (Yan & Rajcan, 2002 ), white lupin (Rubio et al, 2004 ), wheat (Zulfiqar et al, 2021 ), papaya (Santana, Ramos, et al, 2021 ), and tomato (Ene et al, 2022 ).…”

Early selection for drought tolerance in popcorn based on gene effects estimated in seedlings

“…This specialty corn is a widely valued and consumed food, particularly in the context of leisure and cinema (Do Amaral et al, 2013;Kamphorst et al, 2021a). However, a major market could still be created in Brazil, given that the area planted has grown by 223% in the last five years (Kist et al, 2019;Kamphorst et al, 2020b;Kamphorst et al 2020a;Kamphorst et al, 2021b;De Santos et al, 2021).…”