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Bottom-up redistribution of biomass optimizes energy allocation, water use and yield formation in dryland wheat improvement.

Pu‐Fang Li,B. Ma,S. Guo,Tong‐Tong Ding,Y. Xiong

Published 2021 in The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND Modern wheat cultivars have been developed distinct advantages in many aspects under drought stress, such as plasticity in biomass allocation and root system architecture. A better understanding of the biomass allocation mechanisms that enable modern wheat to achieve higher yields and yield-based water use efficiency (WUEg ) is essential for implementing best management strategies and identifying phenotypic traits for cultivar improvement. We systematically investigated the biomass allocation, morphological and physiological characteristics of three ploidy wheat genotypes under 80% and 50% field water-holding capacity (FC) conditions. Some crucial traits were also assessed in a complementary field experiment. RESULTS The diploid and tetraploid genotypes were found to allocate more biomass to the root system, especially roots in the topsoil under drought stress. Our data illustrated that lower WUEg and yield of these old genotypes were due to excessive investment in the root system which was associated with severely restricted canopy development. The modern hexaploid genotypes were found to allocate smaller biomass to roots and larger biomass to shoots. This not only ensured the necessary water uptake, but also allowed the plant to distribute more assimilates and limited water to the shoots. Therefore, the hexaploid genotypes have evolved a stable plant canopy structure to optimize WUEg and grain yield. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that the biomass shift from belowground to the aboveground or a more balanced root-shoot ratio tended to optimize water use and yield of the modern cultivars. This discovery provides potential guidance for future dryland wheat breeding and sustainable management strategies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2021

  • Venue

    The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

  • Publication date

    2021-11-24

  • Fields of study

    Agricultural and Food Sciences, Medicine, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1002/jsfa.11680PMID 34820841
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar, PubMed

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