Review
Adapting wheat in Europe for climate change

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcs.2014.01.006Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Wheat ideotypes for climate scenarios in Europe can be predicted by modifying cultivar parameters in process-based models.

  • Growth of higher yielding genotypes will need to be better tailored to the temporal distribution of water availability.

  • Further drought tolerance will need to be combined with increased harvest index associated with extended maturation.

  • Increased frequency of extreme weather events during meiosis and anthesis requires that heat stress tolerance is improved.

Abstract

Increasing cereal yield is needed to meet the projected increased demand for world food supply of about 70% by 2050. Sirius, a process-based model for wheat, was used to estimate yield potential for wheat ideotypes optimized for future climatic projections for ten wheat growing areas of Europe. It was predicted that the detrimental effect of drought stress on yield would be decreased due to enhanced tailoring of phenology to future weather patterns, and due to genetic improvements in the response of photosynthesis and green leaf duration to water shortage. Yield advances could be made through extending maturation and thereby improve resource capture and partitioning. However the model predicted an increase in frequency of heat stress at meiosis and anthesis. Controlled environment experiments quantify the effects of heat and drought at booting and flowering on grain numbers and potential grain size. A current adaptation of wheat to areas of Europe with hotter and drier summers is a quicker maturation which helps to escape from excessive stress, but results in lower yields. To increase yield potential and to respond to climate change, increased tolerance to heat and drought stress should remain priorities for the genetic improvement of wheat.

Keywords

Wheat ideotype
Crop improvement
Heat and drought tolerance
Crop modelling
Impact assessment
Sirius

Abbreviations

A
maximum area of flag leaf area
ABA
abscisic acid
CV
coefficient of variation
FC
field capacity
Gf
grain filling duration
GMT
Greenwich mean time
GS
growth stage
HSP
heat shock protein
LAI
leaf area index
HI
harvest index
Ph
phylochron
Pp
photoperiod response
Ru
root water uptake
S
duration of leaf senescence
SF
drought stress factor

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