MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous small non-coding RNAs that arise from large RNA precursors with a stem-loop structure and play important roles in plant development and responses to environmental stress. Although a hundred and nineteen wheat miRNAs have been identified and registered in the miRBase (Release 21.0, June, 2014; http://www.mirbase.org), the functional characterization o...

Grass genomes are complicated structures as they share a common tetraploidization, and particular genomes have been further affected by extra polyploidizations. These events and the following genomic re-patternings have resulted in a complex, interweaving gene homology both within a genome, and between genomes. Accurately deciphering the structure of these complicated plant genomes would help u...

Climatic warming is often predicted to reduce wheat yield and grain quality in China. However, direct evidence is still lacking. We conducted a three-year experiment with a Free Air Temperature Increase (FATI) facility to examine the responses of winter wheat growth and plant N accumulation to a moderate temperature increase of 1.5°C predicted to prevail by 2050 in East China. Three warming tre...

The effect of neighbouring plants on crop root system architecture may directly interfere with water and nutrient acquisition, yet this important and interesting aspect of competition remains poorly understood. Here, the effect of the weed blackgrass (Alopecurus myosuroides Huds.) on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) roots was tested, since a low density of this species (25 plants m-2) can lead to a...

This article comprises our final remarks on the phenotypic effects of alien plasmons on common wheat. Twenty-one vegetative, reproductive, and seed characters of 551 alloplasmic lines of 12 common wheat genotypes with 46 alloplasmons, and as the control, their euplasmic lines were investigated. Effects of genotype, plasmon, and their interaction had high statistical significance for all the cha...

For 17 cultivars of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) different vernalisation and photoperiod responses were detected. The effect of photoperiod sensitivity was not significantly changed by vernalisation; different vernalisation responses were probably due to the presence of multiple alleles at Vrn loci. The delay in heading depended on the vernalisation deficit exponentially: y = parameter (...

A dosage effect of chromosome 5A (formerly IX) of common wheat, Triticum aestivum L. emend Thell. ssp. vulgare, has been well established. With increasing dosage from monosomic to tetrasomic, the phenotype changes from speltoid to normal vulgare type (squarehead) to subcompactoid to compactoid (HUSKINS 1946; SEARS 1952, 1954) (Figure 1 and Table 3) . This is due to the pleiotropic gene Q locate...

Spike hetero branching wheat (Triticum aestivum) (SHBW) has one main rachis, but has branched rachises at lower parts of main rachis. This type of spike could increase greatly grain number by bearing grain in branching rachis. In this study, field experiments were conducted at three locations in Huanghuai wheat zone during two growing seasons (2008-2010). The rachises length, node number, grain...