Impact of fungal foliar diseases on wheat fruiting efficiency

Abstract

Several estimations indicate that current genetic gains in wheat will not be enough to satisfy the increased demand of this cereal. Thus, identifying physiological traits that remain stable in the presence of biotic stresses to increase wheat yield potential is fundamental. Foliar diseases are one of the main biotic factors limiting wheat yield. Wheat yield can be analyzed in terms of two principal components, the number of grains per unit area and the grain weight, being variations more associated to the grain number. Grain number per spike can be considered the product of the spike dry weight and the number of grains set per unit of spike dry weight, i.e., fruiting efficiency (FE), which indicates the efficiency. with which resources allocated to the spikes at anthesis are used to set grains. FE could be a suitable trait for selection to increase the grain number. Furthermore, FE might constitute a possible attribute of wheat tolerance, as there could exist genotypes that maintain a high FE in the presence of diseases, which could keep the yield stable in such conditions. The present work aims to assess the effect of fungal foliar diseases on FE identifying genotypes able to keep FE stable under high disease severity conditions.