Plant Yield Efficiency by Homeostasis as Selection Tool at Ultra-Low Density. A Comparative Study with Common Stability Measures in Maize

Agronomy

Evaggelia Sinapidou¹  Constantinos Tzantarmas¹  Fotakis Gekas¹  Elissavet Ninou²  Ioannis Papadopoulos³  Iosif Sistanis³  Fokion Papathanasiou³  Rafael Sandaltzopoulos⁴  Maria Tokamani⁴  IoannisS. Tokatlidis⁴  Anastasia Kargiotidou⁵  Ioannis Mylonas⁶  Chrysanthi Pankou⁷ 

[1] Department of Agricultural Development, Democritus University of Thrace, 68200 Orestiada, Greece;Department of Agriculture, International Hellenic University, Sindos, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece;Department of Agriculture, University of Western Macedonia, 53100 Florina, Greece;Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece;Institute of Industrial and Forage Crops, Hellenic Agricultural Organization Demeter, 41335 Larissa, Greece;Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, Hellenic Agricultural Organization Demeter, 57001 Thermi, Greece;School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece;

关键词: breeding;    competition;    drought;    resilience;   

DOI  :  10.3390/agronomy10081203

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The study pertains to field experimentation testing seven maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids at four densities, across five locations under normal (NIR) and low-input (LIR) regimes. The main objective was to assess the prognostic value of plant yield efficiency by homeostasis (PYEH) for breeding purposes at ultra-low plant density to predict hybrid yield potential and stability. PYEH comprises plant yield efficiency (PYE) that reflects the ability of individual plants to exploit resources, and plant yield homeostasis (PYH) that indicates the crop’s ability to evade acquired plant-to-plant variability. The same hybrids were also evaluated for stability by commonly used parametric and non-parametric statistics based on data at low (LCD) and high crop densities (HCD). Hybrid stability focused on potential yield loss due to erratic optimum density (OD). Most methods produced conflicting results regarding hybrid ranking for yield and stability especially at LCD. In contrast, PYEH consistently highlighted high-yielding and stable hybrids, potentially able to reach the attainable crop yield (ACY) inter-seasonally irrespective of crop spacing. Low density is common practice under resource-deficit conditions, so crop adaptation to crop spacing is a viable option to overcome erratic OD that constitutes a root source of crop instability in rainfed maize. The results were further supportive of breeding at ultra-low density to facilitate the identification and selection of superior genotypes, since such conditions promote phenotypic expression and differentiation, and ensure repeatability across diverse environments.

【 授权许可】

Unknown