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Differential responses of grain yield, grain protein, and their associated traits to nitrogen supply in soft red winter wheat
Author(s) -
Tamang Bishal G.,
Brasier Kyle G.,
Thomason Wade E.,
Griffey Carl A.,
Fukao Takeshi
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of plant nutrition and soil science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.644
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1522-2624
pISSN - 1436-8730
DOI - 10.1002/jpln.201600312
Subject(s) - nitrogen , agronomy , cultivar , yield (engineering) , grain yield , biology , winter wheat , chemistry , materials science , organic chemistry , metallurgy
Increased application of nitrogen fertilizers has significantly raised grain yield and protein concentration in wheat. However, only 30–50% of applied fertilizer nitrogen are usually utilized by the plant. In this study, four soft red winter wheat genotypes ( Triticum aestivum L., IL07‐4415, MD05W10208‐11‐8, OH06‐150‐57 and Sisson) were grown under three different nitrogen regimes (high, medium, and low) in a greenhouse, and grain yield, grain protein concentration, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and their associated traits were evaluated. Among the four genotypes, a high‐yielding cultivar, Sisson, exhibited superior performance in terms of grain weight plant −1 and NUE for yield (NUEY) at low nitrogen due to maintained grain number spike −1 and harvest index. Significant yield losses due to nitrogen limitation were attributable to reduced spike number plant −1 and grain number spike −1 in the other genotypes. Interestingly, a linear relationship between NUEY and NUE for grain protein (NUEP) was detected at high ( R 2 = 0.67) and low ( R 2 = 0.42) nitrogen; both of these traits were positively correlated with grain number spike −1 , 1000‐seed weight, and harvest index under nitrogen‐limited conditions ( R 2 = 0.35–0.48). These results suggest that simultaneous improvement of NUEY and NUEP could be achieved through the selection of the three yield components (grain number spike −1 , 1000‐seed weight, and harvest index) at low nitrogen.