Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the major crop in terms of planted area and presents the largest distribution in the country covering a wide range of climatic regions. This study assesses the changes of various agronomic traits of winter wheat cultivars released in Chile between 1920 and 2000. A total of 117 winter accessions, representing 45 old and 72 modern cultivars were tested in a humid Mediterranean-type climate, with irrigation, in 2003. Old cultivars were those released before 1960 and modern ones were those released after 1960. Principal component (PC) analysis using 10 agronomic traits clearly separate modern from old cultivars of winter wheat. Comparing modern cultivars with old ones, plant height have been reduced by 25.6%, but others traits have increased, like harvest index (21.1%), number of grains per ear (42.6%), sedimentation value (103%), and grain hardness (32.0%). The variation in plant height was negatively correlated with harvest index (r = -0.30, p < 0.001). Grain yield, a trait not included in PC analysis, was highly correlated with the second PC (r = 0.81, p < 0.0001). Significant (p < 0.01) correlations were found between the year of release of cultivars and agronomic traits: plant height (r = -0.82), harvest index (r = 0.40), number of grain per ear (r = 0.69), sedimentation value (r = 0.64), and kernel weight (r = -0.46). Those correlations were mostly a consequence of absence or presence of dwarfing genes in the germplasm. Finally, the yield progress was calculated from yield data of yield trial with 15-25 cultivars and advanced lines of winter wheat tested almost every year from 1965 to 2001, showed no increase in yield between 1965 and 1975, but an increment of 246 kg ha -1 per year between 1976 and 1998, representing an annual increase of 2.6%.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genetic improvement objectives include obtaining cultivars capable of expressing their maximum potential yield and quality in diverse environments. This make necessary to know and define the environment in which a variety can express its maximum potential yield and quality. The objective of this study was to assess which method is the most efficient to study cultivars response in multiple environments. For this, we analyze the adaptability, stability, and genotype × environment (G×E) interaction effect, grain yield, sedimentation, and wet gluten content of 13 spring wheat cultivars sown in six environments in the central-south and southern zones of Chile during two seasons. The data were analyzed by regression analysis, additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI), and the sites regression (SREG) model. By this was thus established that SREG analysis is the most efficient for this type of study since, in addition to analyzing stability, adaptability, and effect (G×E), it allows identifying the best cultivar. In this case, 'Pandora-INIA' stands out by exhibiting the best yield (7.38 t ha -1 ), high sedimentation (36.95 cm 3 ), and wet gluten (41.54%) indices in all the environments, and this positions it as a variety having both high yield and quality.

Wheat yellow rust (Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici West. PST) is one of the main fungal diseases that causes major yield losses in the central and southern wheat production area of Chile. Chilean plant breeding programs have been using specific resistance genes to control this disease and resistance was frequently lost due to the appearance of new pathotypes of this pathogen. This resulted in a frequent change of wheat cultivars in the country. The objective of this work was to determine the genetic polymorphism among PST samples collected in wheat fields throughout the country, using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Twenty-nine PST populations from 5 locations were analysed with 64 RAPD primers and 6 combinations of AFLP primers. The coefficients of similarity (53% for RAPD and 14% for AFLP) indicated that the populations of yellow rust in Chile are highly diverse, in contrast with similar studies performed in other countries. This observation is supported by the virulence spectrum of PST population. This stressed the need to pyramid 2 or more major genes in commercial cultivars. Alternatively, the deployment of adult plant resistance gene combinations should be conducted. AFLP technique was more robust for analysis of the genetic diversity of PST compared with RAPD, because of its reproducibility and high level of polymorphism. The analysis of genetic similarity data among yellow rust populations grouped most of the PST population according to their geographic origin.

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