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. 2019 Apr 29;70(9):2549-2560.
doi: 10.1093/jxb/ery226.

Drought tolerance during reproductive development is important for increasing wheat yield potential under climate change in Europe

Nimai Senapati  1 , Pierre Stratonovitch  1 , Matthew J Paul  1 , Mikhail A Semenov  1
Affiliations

Drought tolerance during reproductive development is important for increasing wheat yield potential under climate change in Europe

Nimai Senapati et al. J Exp Bot. .

Abstract

Drought stress during reproductive development could drastically reduce wheat grain number and yield, but quantitative evaluation of such an effect is unknown under climate change. The objectives of this study were to evaluate potential yield benefits of drought tolerance during reproductive development for wheat ideotypes under climate change in Europe, and to identify potential cultivar parameters for improvement. We used the Sirius wheat model to optimize drought-tolerant (DT) and drought-sensitive (DS) wheat ideotypes under a future 2050 climate scenario at 13 contrasting sites, representing major wheat growing regions in Europe. Averaged over the sites, DT ideotypes achieved 13.4% greater yield compared with DS, with higher yield stability. However, the performances of the ideotypes were site dependent. Mean yield of DT was 28-37% greater compared with DS in southern Europe. In contrast, no yield difference (≤1%) between ideotypes was found in north-western Europe. An intermediate yield benefit of 10-23% was found due to drought tolerance in central and eastern Europe. We conclude that tolerance to drought stress during reproductive development is important for high yield potentials and greater yield stability of wheat under climate change in Europe.

Keywords: Climate change; drought stress; drought tolerance; ideotype optimization; reproductive development; wheat yield potential; yield stability.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Locations of 13 selected study sites, representing major wheat growing regions across Europe. Mean maximum temperature and mean monthly precipitation are shown for the future 2050 climate scenario (based on HadGEM2 and RCP8.5). (This figure is available in colour at JXB online.)
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Wheat yield and yield coefficient of variance (CV) of drought-sensitive (DS) and drought-tolerant (DT) ideotypes optimized under the future 2050 climate scenario (based on HadGEM2 and RCP8.5) at 13 sites, representing major wheat growing regions in Europe. The yield CV during model optimization was limited to 10% (A) and 15% (B). (This figure is available in colour at JXB online.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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