article · Plants
Evaluating bread wheat parental genotypes and hybrids under normal and drought conditions identified key genetic controls for physiological, agronomic, and grain quality traits. Water deficit reduced chlorophyll levels, photosynthetic efficiency, relative water content, and grain yield, while increasing proline, antioxidant enzyme activities, and grain protein and gluten contents. Across 36 genotypes grouped by drought tolerance, specific parents such as P3 and P8, alongside hybrids including P2 x P4, P3 x P5, P3 x P8, and P6 x P7, proved most effective for enhancing yield and physiological performance under water stress. Other parents, notably P1, P2, and P5, alongside multiple specific crosses, favoured protein and gluten quality. Physiological markers such as chlorophyll, proline, and relative water content positively correlated with yield, offering traits for indirect selection, although grain protein content was negatively correlated with yield under drought.
Drought poses a severe threat to wheat production and global food security, particularly in water-scarce regions. Identifying specific wheat parents and hybrid crosses capable of maintaining yield or grain quality under water stress provides plant breeders with precise genetic targets. Understanding how physiological traits link to harvest yields helps accelerate the breeding of resilient crops suited to increasingly dry climates.
This work provides direct genetic insights and breeding combinations for agricultural research institutions and commercial seed breeding programmes. The findings identify candidate parents and hybrid crosses for developing drought-tolerant, high-yielding bread wheat varieties. As an experimental diallel breeding study evaluated across parents and crosses, this research is at an applied, early-stage breeding phase requiring further field trials and lineage stabilisation before commercial seed release.
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Water scarcity is a major environmental stress that adversatively impacts wheat growth, production, and quality. Furthermore, drought is predicted to be more frequent and severe as a result of climate change, particularly in arid regions. Hence, breeding for drought-tolerant and high-yielding wheat genotypes has become more decisive to sustain its production and ensure global food security with continuing population growth. The present study aimed at evaluating different parental bread wheat genotypes (exotic and local) and their hybrids under normal and drought stress conditions. Gene action controlling physiological, agronomic, and quality traits through half-diallel analysis was applied. The results showed that water-deficit stress substantially decreased chlorophyll content, photosynthetic efficiency (FV/Fm), relative water content, grain yield, and yield attributes. On the other hand, proline content, antioxidant enzyme activities (CAT, POD, and SOD), grain protein content, wet gluten content, and dry gluten content were significantly increased compared to well-watered conditions. The 36 evaluated genotypes were classified based on drought tolerance indices into 5 groups varying from highly drought-tolerant (group A) to highly drought-sensitive genotypes (group E). The parental genotypes P<sub>3</sub> and P<sub>8</sub> were identified as good combiners to increase chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll content, relative water content, grain yield, and yield components under water deficit conditions. Additionally, the cross combinations P<sub>2</sub> × P<sub>4</sub>, P<sub>3</sub> × P<sub>5</sub>, P<sub>3</sub> × P<sub>8</sub>, and P<sub>6</sub> × P<sub>7</sub> were the most promising combinations to increase yield traits and multiple physiological parameters under water deficit conditions. Furthermore, P<sub>1</sub>, P<sub>2</sub>, and P<sub>5</sub> were recognized as promising parents to improve grain protein content and wet and dry gluten contents under drought stress. In addition, the crosses P<sub>1</sub> × P<sub>4</sub>, P<sub>2</sub> × P<sub>3</sub>, P<sub>2</sub> × P<sub>5</sub>, P<sub>2</sub> × P<sub>6</sub>, P<sub>4</sub> × P<sub>7</sub>, P<sub>5</sub> × P<sub>7</sub>, P<sub>5</sub> × P<sub>8</sub>, P<sub>6</sub> × P<sub>8</sub>, and P<sub>7</sub> × P<sub>8</sub> were the best combinations to improve grain protein content under water-stressed and non-stressed conditions. Certain physiological traits displayed highly positive associations with grain yield and its contributing traits under drought stress such as chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll content, photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm), proline content, and relative water content, which suggest their importance for indirect selection under water deficit conditions. Otherwise, grain protein content was negatively correlated with grain yield, indicating that selection for higher grain yield could reduce grain protein content under drought stress conditions.
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DOI: 10.3390/plants11070952
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