*Presenting author: karine.chenu@uq.edu.au

Abiotic stresses limit wheat production in major production regions worldwide. With climate change, increases in CO2 concentration, temperature, evaporative demand and rainfall variability are projected to heavily impact different crop processes and their complex interactions. Abiotic stresses experienced by wheat crops in Australian production systems, their changes in recent decades and their future projections were characterized using crop modelling. Changes of climate in recent decades have caused significant impacts on wheat crops due to an increase in post-flowering heatwaves, drought and even frost stress.

In the future, to optimize productivity, projections indicate that growers should sow earlier or plant earlier-maturing cultivars (Collins and Chenu 2021, Climate Risk Management, 100300). However, despite such agronomic adaptations, heat and drought are expected to remain important factors limiting grain yield.

Combining physiological and modelling approaches, key adaptive traits such as transpiration efficiency and stay-green were identified (e.g., Casadebaig et al 2016, Plos One 11, 1-27; Christopher et al 2016, Journal of Experimental Botany 67, 5159-5172). The value of such traits varies spatially (across studied production regions) and temporally (current vs future projected climates) (e.g. Collins et al 2021, in silico Plants 3).

New phenotyping approaches have been developed to screen reliably for such traits (e.g. Ullah et al 2023, European Journal of Agronomy 144, 126757; Chenu et al 2018, Journal of Experimental Botany 69, 3181-3194), and wheat populations were screened ( Christopher et al 2021, Field Crops Research 270, 108181).

The results, including advances in physiological and genetic adaptations will be discussed with a view to promoting increased grain yield in a context of changing environments.