Winter wheat flag leave morphometric traits under drought

Volodymir Morgun, Galyna Priadkina and Nadia Makharynska

Abstract: Comprehensive studies of winter wheat plants genetic variability at morphological, physiological, genetic, cellular and molecular levels under unfavorable conditions are relevant to prevent the negative impact of climate change yields. In two year field experiments studied flag leaf morphometric and pigments traits of 6 modern varieties of winter wheat under natural drought during the periods of reproductive organs formation as well as grain filling. Under drought high-productive winter wheat varieties are characterized by high flag leaf dry weight at anthesis and a lower ratio of carotenoids to chlorophyll at milk ripeness it was found. A positive relationship between the grain productivity of the main shoot ear of winter wheat, as well as yield and flag leaf dry weight at anthesis was established. Based on the literature data, the presence of quantitative traits loci in wheat chromosomes that affect drought tolerance through the regulation of flag leaf assimilation apparatus traits was analyzed. The higher yields of varieties with the best features of the assimilation apparatus of the flag leaf under natural drought in both years of research it has been suggested that genes that control drought tolerance may be linked to genes that affect on the assimilation apparatus characteristics.

Keywords: drought tolerance; leaf dry weight; soft winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.); yield

Date published: 2022-08-19