Genetic analysis of spike length in wheat

• Published in: Genetika (Beograd) Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 167 - 178
• Main Authors: Mladenov, Velimir, Dimitrijevic, Miodrag, Petrovic, Sofija, Bocanski, Jan, Banjac, Borislav, Kondic-Spika, Ankica, Trkulja, Dragana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• ISSN: 0534-0012; 1820-6069
• DOI: 10.2298/GENSR1901167M

The permanent need for efficient plant breeding comes from the increment of
human population, which is projected to reach 9.7 million by 2050. Novel
approaches could be used to reach these goals more rapidly, raising the
question of efficiency, as well. Spike length is one of the important
components of grain yield formation in wheat. The influence of individual
plan traits is getting more important to grain yield formation per area unit
in stressful growing conditions, which are increasingly present due to
global climate changes. The objectives of the present research were
three-fold: (i) to determine the influence of a genotype, environment and
their interaction on spike length and to evaluate stability of the trait;
(ii) to present cause-causing links on a graphical example; (iii) to
transform a number of possibly correlated variables into a smaller number of
uncorrelated variables called principal components. Samples were obtained
from 96 winter wheat cultivars grown in 2011/12 and 2012/13 on two
locations. The wheat genotype population was profiled with 28
microsatellites. The ANOVA of the total phenotypic variation of the
experiment shows that genotypes took the largest portion, followed by the
influence of the GE interaction. Additional analysis of the GE interaction
using the PCA analysis shows a statistical significance of the first two
main components. In the conducted research, the dispersion of the points
represents two subpopulations, but the geographical origin could not explain
the grouping of genotypes within the same, so the division into two groups
was done on the basis of their lines of descent.
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