Abstract
Key message
Changes in entries’ market classes and genetic improvements within classes—not environmental changes—enhanced yields over thirty-one years of wheat trials. Correlations between yields and ancestries drove genomic prediction accuracies.
Abstract
Increasing crop yields is important for enhancing farmers’ livelihoods, meeting market demands, and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. We analyzed the yield trends of Ontario winter wheat variety trials between 1988 and 2018. Over this period, wheat yields steadily increased by 38 kg ha−1 yr−1, or 0.68% yr−1 relative to the mean. While fungicide treatment of trials contributed a one-time 670 kg ha−1 yield increase, yields were otherwise unaffected by long-term changes in agronomic practice, climate, or other non-genetic factors. Genetic improvement entirely accounted for yield improvement. Market class changes over the 31 year span accounted for some yield improvement. More importantly, genetic improvement occurred within each market class. Entry yield estimates calculated from genomic prediction models strongly correlated with field estimated yields with a mean r of 0.68. Genomic prediction accuracies were high because yields differed across genetically distinct subpopulations. Despite environmental changes, genetic improvement will likely increase Ontario winter wheat yields into the future.
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SNP information and cultivar information are provided in Online Resource tables and are available upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Megan House for a critical reading of the manuscript, Dr. Gavin Humphreys for information about disease resistance genes in winter wheat, Patrick McMillan for R coding recommendations, and Dale Anderson for kindly providing digital performance trial records. The work was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, the Ontario Ministry of Training, College and Universities, and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
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This work was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, the Ontario Ministry of Training, College and Universities, and the Natural Sciences Research Council of Canada.
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AS, DS and ES acquired data. AS, DS and LL performed the analyses and wrote the text.
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Delvin So, Alexandra Smith, and Lewis Lukens have no financial interests. Ellen Sparry is an employee of C and M Seed which sells wheat seed. Ellen Sparry had no role in the data analysis.
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So, D., Smith, A., Sparry, E. et al. Genetics, not environment, contributed to winter wheat yield gains in Ontario, Canada. Theor Appl Genet 135, 1893–1908 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04082-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04082-3