Morpho-physiolological and qualitative traits of a bread wheat collection spanning a century of breeding in Italy

By

Vaccino, Patrizia
Laino, Paolo
Limonta, Margherita
Gerna, Davide

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2015-08-14

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

3

Pages

1--12

Subjects

genetic resources , Italy , Phenotyping , Triticum aestivum , wheat breeding

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e4760
eLocator: e4760

 

Abstract

Evaluation and characterization are crucial steps in the exploitation of germplasm collections. The Sant’Angelo Lodigiano unit of the Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) maintains a broad collection of Triticum spp, including more than 4000 genotypes of T. aestivum. Such collection represents a wide source of genetic variability for many agronomic and qualitative traits, extremely useful in modern breeding programs. The collection size, however, makes very difficult its management as a whole. A reduced subset, representing the process of wheat breeding in Italy during the last hundred years, was hence identified for an in-depth characterization. The lines were cropped in two locations over two growing seasons, and analyzed using 16 morpho-agronomic and qualitative descriptors. Most of the analysed characters showed a broad variation throughout the collection, allowing to follow the plant ideotype changes across the breeding progress in Italy during the 20th century.