We investigated whether and how mitochondria from durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) and potato (Solanum tuberosum), isolated from etiolated shoots and a cell suspension culture, respectively, oxidize externally added NADH via the mitochondrial shuttles; in particular, we compared the shuttles and the external NADH dehydrogenase (NADH DHExt) with respect to their capacity to oxidize external NA...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although the apical development of wheat has been widely described, studies analysing how genetic breeding over the 20th century influenced the developmental phases and its consequences on yield generation are lacking, especially for durum wheat under field conditions in Mediterranean environments. The aims of this study were to analyse the effects of breeding in Spain and I...

A novel gene sequence, with two exons and one intron, encoding a metallothionein (MT) has been identified in durum wheat Triticum durum cv. Balcali85 genomic DNA. Multiple alignment analyses on the cDNA and the translated protein sequences showed that T. durum MT (dMT) can be classified as a type 1 MT. dMT has three Cys-X-Cys motifs in each of the N- and C-terminal domains and a 42-residue-long...

Temperature sweep gel electrophoresis in combination with random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis was employed to detect two markers for a single gene governing low cadmium uptake in western Canadian durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum). Analysis of progeny derived from a cross of the high cadmium accumulating cultivar Kyle by the low cadmium accumulating cultivar Nile resulted in li...

Drought is a wide-spread problem seriously influencing durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) production and quality, but development of resistant cultivars is hampered by the lack of effective selection criteria. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of several selection indices to identify drought resistance cultivars under a variety of environmental conditions. Twenty four duru...

There is considerable variability in salt tolerance amongst members of the Triticeae, with the tribe even containing a number of halophytes. This is a review of what is known of the differences in salt tolerance of selected species in this tribe of grasses, and the potential to use wild species to improve salt tolerance in wheat. Most investigators have concentrated on differences in ion accumu...

Radiation hybrid (RH) mapping is based on radiation-induced chromosome breakage and analysis of chromosome segment retention or loss using molecular markers. In durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L., AABB), an alloplasmic durum line [(lo) durum] has been identified with chromosome 1D of T. aestivum L. (AABBDD) carrying the species cytoplasm-specific (scsae) gene. The chromosome 1D of this line segr...

Soil gravel content affects many soil physical properties, as well as crop yield. Little is known regarding the influence of soil gravel content on growth and nutrient uptake of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.). The accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorous during the vegetative and reproductive periods and the contribution of pre-anthesis assimilates to grain N and P content have been evaluat...

After nitrogen stress, phosphorus is the second most widely occurring nutrient deficiency in cereal systems around the world. The objectives of this study were: (1) to look at the effect of changes in phosphorus use efficiency and responsiveness on grain yield and quality of triticale and durum wheat with respect to an old tall durum wheat of the early 1940s, Barrigon Yaqui. A two-year field ex...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is generally considered to be effective in ameliorating the plant tolerance to salt stress. Unfortunately, the comprehension of the mechanisms implicated in salinity stress alleviation by AM symbiosis is far from being complete. Thus, an experiment was performed by growing durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) plants under salt-stress conditions to evaluate th...