A sprouting-resistant and a sprouting-susceptible wheat cultivar were utilized to examine the role of ABA levels and sensitivity responses in wheat embryonic germination. Endogenous embryonic ABA levels were measured in both cultivars throughout grain maturation utilizing a new and sensitive ABA immunoassay. Embryonic ABA levels of each cultivar were similar with the sprouting-susceptible culti...

Heat and drought stress have emerged as major constraints for durum wheat production. In the Mediterranean area, their negative effect on crop productivity is expected to be exacerbated by the occurring climate change. Xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolases (XTHs) are chief enzymes in cell wall remodeling, whose relevance in cell expansion and morphogenesis suggests a central role in stress...

Long-term use of fallow in dryland wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) systems can increase erosion and decrease soil fertility. One possible solution is to grow a green manure crop during the fallow period. To evaluate the short-term effects of substituting a winter legume green manure for fallow in a 2-vr wheat rotation, a series of experiments were conducted in the Sacramento Valley of California f...

Analysis of crop genetic diversity and structure provides valuable information needed to broaden the narrow genetic base as well as to enhance the breeding and conservation strategies of crops. In this study, 95 Austrian and Belgian wheat cultivars maintained at the Centre for Genetic Resources (CGN) in the Netherlands were characterised using 1052 diversity array technology (DArT) markers to e...

We present evidence to show that DAYCENT can reliably simulate soil C levels, crop yields, and annual trace gas fluxes for various soils. DAYCENT was applied to compare the net greenhouse gas fluxes for soils under different land uses. To calculate net greenhouse gas flux we accounted for changes in soil organic C, the C equivalents of N2O emissions and CH4 uptake, and the CO2 costs of N fertil...

Breeding for solid-stemmed durum (Triticum turgidum L. var durum) and common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars is one strategy to minimize yield losses caused by the wheat stem sawfly (Cephus cinctus Norton). Major stem-solidness QTL have been localized to the long arm of chromosome 3B in both wheat species, but it is unclear if these QTL span a common genetic interval. In this study, we h...

Environmental stress, especially drought stress, can play an important role in the reduction of the plant growth stage, specifically duringgermination in arid and semi arid regions in Iran.. In order to study the effects of drought stress on germination indices in wheat cultivars, an experiment was conducted in factorial form, using a completely randomized design of four replications. In this e...

TaGS5 genes were cloned from bread wheat and were physically mapped on 3AS and 3DS. Sequencing results revealed that a SNP was found in the sixth exon of TaGS5-A1 gene. The SNP resulted in amino acid change from alanine to serine at the 303 bp position of TaGS5-A1. These two alleles were designated as TaGS5-A1a (alanine at the 303 bp position) and TaGS5-A1b genes (serine at the 303-bp position)...

In higher plants, L-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase (GLDH) plays important roles in ascorbic acid (AsA) biosynthesis and assembly of respiration complex I. Here we report three homoeologous genes (TaGLDH-A1, -B1 and -D1) encoding common wheat GLDH isozymes and a unique allelic variant (TaGLDH-A1b) associated with enhanced drought tolerance. TaGLDH-A1, -B1 and -D1 were located on chromosomes...