The performance of the genetic gain and breeding progress of historical winter wheat cultivars set in the period from 1930 to 2013 in South-eastern Europe

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the changes in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain yield and stability during the last century and to identify meteorological variables related to the cultivar performance in many-years research. A historical set of 47 winter wheat cultivars widely grown in the Pannonian Plain region during the period between 1930 and 2013 was studied. Field experiments with 47 winter wheat cultivars were conducted during ten growing seasons. Grain yield, main agronomic traits, protein content, and Zeleny sedimentation test were studied. The selected cultivars were widely grown and/or extensively used in breeding activities in Serbia and surrounding countries. The obtained results varied significantly across the growing seasons and breeding periods. The grain yield was closely related to winter wheat genetic gain. The genetic progress of grain yield was 48 kg ha -1 per year of cultivar release. Precipitation during winter, stem elongation, and mid and late grain filling stages were highly associated with the grain yield and genetic gain. Differences among the breeding periods were significant for the plant height. The cultivars of the 1st breeding period were the highest with an average plant height of 109 cm. The lowest plant height was recorded in the cultivars of the 5th and 6th breeding periods: 78.5 and 80.5 cm, respectively. Among the growing seasons, the average plant height ranged from 69.5 to 98.6 cm. The hectolitre weight varied from 77.6 to 79.6 kg hl -1 . The thousand grain weight showed a small variation and ranged from 40.1 to 41.9 g. The protein content significantly varied among the breeding periods and growing seasons. Modern cultivars of the 6th (12.4%) and the 4th (12.5%) breeding periods had the lowest protein content, while the highest protein content (14.0%) was recorded in the initial cultivars of the 1st breeding period. The modern winter wheat cultivars showed a higher grain yield potential and stability than older ones. Therefore, the improvement of cultivars stability across different environmental conditions should represent a notable strategy for further increase of the winter wheat grain yield potential.

Environment- and Genotype-Dependent Stability in the Common Wheat Grain Quality (Triticum aestivum L.)

“…Research data in climatically similar regions of the Balkan Peninsula confirm this statement (Öztürk, 2022;Ilin et al, 2022). Changes occurring in quality (GI) can change correlations with grain yield, in a direction that allows a progressive increase of the latter, without negatively affecting the quality (Herrera, et al, 2020;Ilin et al, 2022) The sedimentation value (Zeleny) is the most popular quality index because it has proven high positive correlations with a few other indexes (Chamurliyski et al, 2016;Branković et al, 2018). This makes it an effective breeding tool in efforts to successfully combine grain yield and quality (Tsenov et al, 2021).…”

“…The reported lack of correlation between this index and yield (Kasahun & Alemu, 2022;Öztürk, 2022) in proven interaction (GE) is a reason to assume that the gluten index can be used for direct selection in breeding. Research data in climatically similar regions of the Balkan Peninsula confirm this statement (Öztürk, 2022;Ilin et al, 2022). Changes occurring in quality (GI) can change correlations with grain yield, in a direction that allows a progressive increase of the latter, without negatively affecting the quality (Herrera, et al, 2020;Ilin et al, 2022) The sedimentation value (Zeleny) is the most popular quality index because it has proven high positive correlations with a few other indexes (Chamurliyski et al, 2016;Branković et al, 2018).…”

“…In several countries, grain quality is more important than yield because climatic conditions do not allow the realization of high productive potential (Bhatta et al, 2016;Bornhofen et al, 2017;De Santis et al, 2017). Where there are real opportunities for a successful compromise combination between yield and grain quality, breeding has a long-standing successful practice (Atanasova et al, 2012;Nehe et al, 2019;Ilin et al, 2022). Although grain yield is always paramount, quality has been systematically and thoroughly investigated (De Santis et al, 2017, Liu et al, 2022.…”

“…Complex yield-quality relationships are generally negative but may change substantially by genotype x environment interaction (Öztürk, 2022;. This is an indication the combination of the two aspects of the grain -yield and quality is possible, but at compromise levels of each of them to have progressed in terms of quality as well (Bosi et al, 2022;Ilin et al, 2022). The question of what combination of yield and quality should be aimed at in practical breeding remains open, because with productivity above 9 t/ha, a "balance" between them is difficult to achieve (Dencic et al, 2007;Atanasova et al, 2009).…”

Environmental influence on grain quality stability of common wheat cultivars

“…Varietal quality stability was studied by groups or single indices, which are popular and routine for this kind of research, usually in combination with grain yield (Bosi et al, 2022;Kyratzis et al, 2022) or in cases where progress in breeding is analysed (Bornhofen et al, 2017;Nehe et al, 2019;Ilin et al, 2022). For each cultivar, after its development, information is collected on various aspects of its quality, but relatively little is known about its stability in different environmental conditions (Kyratzis et al, 2022;Liu et al, 2022).…”