Author
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Jaradat, Abdullah |
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Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 3/10/2017 Publication Date: 5/5/2017 Citation: Jaradat, A.A. 2017. Phenotypic and ionome profiling of Triticum aestivum x Aegilops tauschii introgression lines. Crop Science. 57:1-19. Interpretive Summary: Wild relatives of bread wheat contain large amounts of variation for traits that can be used to improve cultivated wheat. New technologies made it easy to introduce such traits into cultivated wheat and to produce synthetic wheat varieties with new and improved agronomic traits of value to wheat producers and consumers. A group of these synthetic wheat lines was evaluated for agronomic and nutrient traits and proved to be better than the cultivated wheat, especially for grain traits and for the essential nutrients iron and zinc. A follow-up study is underway to select lines with the best trait combination for seed increase and for further evaluation of nutrient use efficiency. The information and the seed will be of value to researchers, students and farmers by providing new opportunities to expand the genetic diversity for selected traits beyond what is currently available. Technical Abstract: Eighty-four single homozygous introgressions of the Aegilops tauschii D-genome in the ‘Chinese Spring’ genetic background were used to study phenotypic and ionome profiles during two years of field experiments. An augmented design was used with a repeated check of a local bread wheat cultivar was implemented, and both nearest neighbor analysis and variance of the check cultivar were used to adjust for spatial soil variability. Phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation and heritability estimates were within the agronomically acceptable range of values for wheat in the upper Midwest; however, heritability estimates for kernel weight and spike harvest index were exceptionally larger than expected. Percent significant pairwise differences between chromosomes ranged from low (e.g., 28.6% for the ionome) to large (e.g., 78.6% for seed area). Agronomically, the large (~60.0%) heritability estimates for grain crude protein, spike harvest index and spike fertility index are of special interest. Agronomic traits did not significantly affect ionome estimates, except a positive grain crude protein in Chinese Spring and a negative kernel eight (1D) effects. Leaf nutrients did not contribute significantly to ionome estimates in Chinese Spring; however, seed N, Ca, P, S, Fe and Zn had significant effects on its ionome estimates. Positive effects of leaf nutrients were limited to C and S (1D); while negative effects were found for Mg (2D), Cu (5D and 7D), Fe (4D) and Zn (1D and 4D). Most of these synthetic wheat lines derived from Aegilops tauschii showed a high genetic potential for increasing grain micronutrient concentrations of Chinese Spring wheat. However, their genetic drag on grain yield is yet to be determined. |
