Selection of durum wheat lines under organic management -Preliminary results

Abstract

The H2020 project ECOBREED aims to select germplasm adapted to organic production. To fulfill this objective 72 durum wheat accessions were evaluated under organic ma-nagement at the Tuscia University in Viterbo in 2019. The germplasm included old varieties, local ecotypes, pre-breeding material and modern varieties. The accessions were characterized for several characteristics such as the number of days to terminal spikelet, booting, stem elongation, heading, anthesis and grain filling. Moreover the following measurements were made: flag leaf width, flag leaf length, flag leaf area, plant height, spike dry weight at anthesis, biomass per shoot at anthesis, fertile floret number per spike at anthesis, spike length, spike index, number of spikelets per spike, number of grains per spike, number of grains per spikelet, grain yield per spike, spike fertility index, grain yield per square meter, number of grains per square meter, number of spikes per square meter, biomass per square meter, biomass per tiller, grain yield per tiller, 1000 grain weight, harvest index, chlorophyll content, grain protein, and glu-ten content. Some characteristics regarding the root system archi-tecture were also recorded (i.e. root angle, depth, amount). On the basis of the first year preliminary evaluation, 25 accessions were identified with positive yield and quality characteristics, tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses, and variation in terms of phenological periods. Regarding phenology it should be noted that the accessions have shown different levels of precocity, but the ranking in terms of precocity is not the same across the different growth stages. Some accessions showed very fast juvenile growth while others have a faster development at later growth stages. This is of particular importance since nowadays, as a result of climate change, the environment is extremely erratic and it is important to grow germ-plasm with different precocity levels allowing to escape unpredictably periods of adverse conditions.