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New insight into the North-African durum wheat biodiversity: phenotypic variations for adaptive and agronomic traits

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Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important crop grown worldwide, and especially in the Mediterranean basin, durum wheat is the most used for typical food industry. Due to the variable climate conditions, one of the most important targets for breeders in these areas is the identification of high yielding genotypes. The objective of the present study was to evaluate phenotypic variability in a set of Tunisian and Algerian durum wheat germplasm based on adaptive and yield related traits. Analysis of variance showed significant variation among genotypes, and high heritability for the analyzed agronomic traits. Tiller number per spike and spiked tiller per spike, which are an indication of the crop’s ability to maximize crop yield, ranged from 2.31 to 6.24 and 0.99 to 3.98 respectively. Heading date, one of the most important adaptive trait in cereal, also showed variability, ranging from 127 to 146 days after emergence. The 74 analyzed genotypes showed a high heritability value of thousand kernel weight (53.2%). Interestingly, genetic advance evaluated for thousand kernel weight was 13.77 g. The lowest but definitely moderate heritability value was recorded for tiller number per plant (42%), with a genetic advance of 0.51 tillers per plant. These data are an important starting point for the identification and future breeding of genotypes with higher genetic potential, important requirement for the production of high yielding wheat varieties.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by L’Oreal-Unesco for women in Science program- (Pan Arab Fellowship 2013, and by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (Grant TK/08/2012) in the frame of joint research program between Tunisia (Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research) and Korea (National Research Foundation). This research was supported by Puglia Region, Italy, projects PSR “SAVEGRAIN” and “Intervento cofinanziato dal Fondo di Sviluppo e Coesione 2007–2013—APQ Ricerca Regione Puglia “Programma regionale a sostegno della specializzazione intelligente e della sostenibilità sociale ed ambientale—FutureInResearch”, and a grant from Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca, Italy, project S. WheatPro, (RBSI14QQIW), bando SIR 2014.

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Author notes

  1. I. Yacoubi and D. Nigro have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Biotechnology and Plant Improvement, Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax (CBS), Sfax, Tunisia

    I. Yacoubi & F. Brini

  2. Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, Plant Breeding Section, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    D. Nigro & G. Mangini

  3. Tunisian Higher School of Agriculture of Kef Boulifa, 7119, El Kef, Tunisia

    R. Sayar

  4. Arid Land Department College of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE

    K. Masmoudi

  5. Division of Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea

    Y. W. Seo

  6. Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    S. L. Giove, A. Giancaspro, I. Marcotuli, P. Colasuonno & A. Gadaleta

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  1. I. Yacoubi
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All the authors contributed equally to the conceptualization, methodology and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to A. Gadaleta.

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Yacoubi, I., Nigro, D., Sayar, R. et al. New insight into the North-African durum wheat biodiversity: phenotypic variations for adaptive and agronomic traits. Genet Resour Crop Evol 67, 445–455 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-019-00807-4

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