Early vigour is the fast development of plants at early stages of growth. The early vigour trait is beneficial for weed competition and improved water and nutrient use efficiency. As this is not a primary trait for selection, the cultivars in the Nordic countries have a narrow genetic base and thus a limited phenotypic variation for this trait. Thus, in order to identify germplasm with superior early vigour trait, in this project, we characterized 175 winter wheat germplasm containing mainly landraces and old cultivars of Nordic origin obtained from the Nordic gene bank (NordGen). Germplasm was characterized for early vigour of both roots and shoots under both controlled and field conditions. Shoot growth measurements were done under both controlled and field conditions whereas root growth was evaluated only under controlled conditions. Both root and shoot growth was measured by imaging and further analysis. Large phenotypic variation was found for early vigour trait of roots and shoots in the Nordic Germplasm. There was no significant correlation between the early vigour of roots and shoots indicating separate genetic mechanisms controlling the two traits. The results highlight the importance of including early vigour evaluation of the germplasm in wheat breeding for Northern Europe.

The results also identify novel sources of early vigour trait in NordGen genebank collection. These results will be presented.