Abstract

Drought is the major environmental factor limiting wheat production worldwide. Developing novel cultivars with greater drought tolerance is the most viable solution to ensure sustainable agricultural production and alleviating threats to food-security. Here we established a core-collection of landraces and modern durum wheat cultivars (WheatME, n = 36), from the Middle East region (Jordan, Palestine and Israel) aiming at unlocking the genetic and morpho-physiological adaptation to semi-arid environment conditions. Interestingly, genetic analysis of the WheatME core-collection could not distinguish the landraces according to their country of origin. Field-based evaluation of the core-collection conducted across range of contrasting environmental conditions: Til-Palestine, Bet-Dagan-Israel and Irbid-Jordan with annual precipitation of 500 mm, 360 mm and 315 mm, respectively. The Til environment showed highest grain yield while the Irbid environment showed the lowest values. Analysis of variance showed a significant Genotype × Environment interaction for plant phenology traits (plant height and heading date) and productivity traits (1000-kernel weight, and grain yield). Principal component analysis showed three main cultivar groups: High yielding lines (modern durum cultivars, and landraces), tall late flowering landraces, and landraces with high grain weight. This knowledge could serve as basis for future breeding efforts to develop new elite cultivars adapted to the Mediterranean Basin’s semi-arid conditions.

Details

Title
Unlocking the Genetic Diversity within A Middle-East Panel of Durum Wheat Landraces for Adaptation to Semi-arid Climate
Author
Abu-Zaitoun, Salam Y 1 ; Chandrasekhar, Kottakota 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Siwar Assili 3 ; Shtaya, Munqez J 1 ; Jamous, Rana M 1 ; Mallah, Omar B 1 ; Nashef, Kamal 2 ; Sela, Hanan 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Assaf Distelfeld 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Alhajaj, Nawal 5 ; Ali-Shtayeh, Mohammed S 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Peleg, Zvi 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ben-David, Roi 2 

1  Biodiversity & Environmental Research Center (BERC), Til 458, Palestine 
2  The Institute of Plant Sciences, Agriculture Research Organization (ARO)–Volcani Center, 68 HaMaccabim Road, P.O.B 15159, Rishon LeZion 7505101, Israel 
3  The Institute of Plant Sciences, Agriculture Research Organization (ARO)–Volcani Center, 68 HaMaccabim Road, P.O.B 15159, Rishon LeZion 7505101, Israel; The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O.B 12, Rehovot 7610001, Israel 
4  School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel 
5  Field Crop Department, National Agricultural Research Center (NARC), P.O.B 639, Baqa’ 19381, Jordan 
6  The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O.B 12, Rehovot 7610001, Israel 
First page
233
Publication year
2018
Publication date
2018
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20734395
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy8100233
ProQuest document ID
2582793052
Copyright
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.