CULTIVAR RECOMMENDATIONS OF DURUM WHEAT VARIETIES BASED ON YIELD AND QUALITY MULTIENVIRONMENTS TRIALS IN MOROCCO Abstract uri icon

abstract

  • The release of productive wheat cultivars with high quality standards is a major goal in Moroccan wheat breeding program. Under climate change context, the combination of these two attributes is hampered by the high effects of Genotype x Environment interaction (GEI).Therefore, cultivar recommendation will allow better optimization of varieties performances under specific areas within the wheat-producing region. This study aims to assess grain yield and quality performances (protein content, gluten strength and yellow pigment) of durum wheat varieties across various agro-ecological locations in Morocco. Twenty-one Moroccan durum wheat varieties were evaluated in eleven environments defined as year-location combination and representing different agro-ecological regions of Morocco during 2016-2018 seasons. The results indicated significant effects of genotype, environment and GEI for grain yield and all the quality traits. Grain yield ranged from 4.51 t.ha-1 in favorable and humid regions to 2.33 t.ha-1 in semi-arid areas to 1.23 t.ha-1 in the mountains. Nevertheless, grain yield showed a negative correlation with protein and gluten contents (p<0.0001). The best quality was recorded in arid areas (15.62% and 37.25% in protein and wet gluten contents respectively, whereas mountains zone exhibited the lowest proteins and gluten contents (8.74%and 20%). This finding will involve the adoption of specific breeding strategies and cultivars recommendations based on target environments. Multivariate analysis were performed to identify adapted durum wheat cultivars and recommend them for the main Moroccan agro-ecologic zones.

publication date

  • July 2019