Durum wheat landraces from Syria

Abstract

Syrian durum wheat landraces from diverse collection sites were evaluated for agronomic performance under arid conditions over two seasons at four locations, at two levels of nutrient availability.Grain yield differed considerably among locations. Within locations, significant population and fertilizer effects were demonstrated . In most cases, maximum yield was achieved by landraces, which demonstrates the breeding value of local germplasm . In a particular environment, the population effect was nonsignificant for total dry matter production, but significant for straw and grain yield . Nitrogen application was ineffective if moisture availability was the dominant growth limiting factor .Correlations between plant characteristics at evaluation and collection site characteristics were limited, and therefore, their utilization in germplasm evaluation appear limited . The negative relation between grain yield and soil nitrogen content at the collection site may be caused by the comparative disadvantage that germplasm from regions with favourable growing conditions has under low-yielding conditions . Particular environmental conditions at the collection site were no indicator for the response to changed growing conditions . Relatively high grain yields under good and adverse growing conditions excluded each other in all but two cases . Also, it was difficult to relate grain yield to regions of collection, as the response of individual landraces from a certain region to changing growing conditions differed strongly . Differentiation on the basis of landrace groups appears more promising . The Hauran landrace group provided the largest number of populations with relatively high grain yields over diverse environments .

Assessment of glutenin and phenotypic diversity of Syrian durum wheat landraces in relation to their geographical origin

“…The calculated correlation coefficients suggest that these growth-limiting conditions are negatively related to both phenotypic and glutenin diversity. This corresponds with the observation of Elings (1991) that populations collected in nonmountainous desert areas with low winter temperature and high summer temperature are relatively homogeneous morphologically. The western areas, showing the highest degree of genetic variability, are less arid and have a less extreme temperature regime.…”

“…durum and T. aestivum, as based on the genetic interpretation of the glutenin banding pattern conflicted in 224 cases (5.5%) with the morphological field identification used previously by Elings (1991). Chromosome numbers of these lines were determined.…”

“…At Tel Hadya in Syria, Elings (1991) scored the same populations for 10 phenological and morphological traits, viz. days to heading, flag leaf length and width, plant height, awn and spike length, number of spikelets per spike, quantified awn and spike color, and degree of seed shrivelling.…”

“…These sites represented a wide range of agro-ecological areas (Elings & Nachit, 1991). The phenotypic diversity of the populations was assessed for 10 quantitative characteristics of single-head progenies (Elings, 1991). Glutenin diversity of the material was determined on the basis of the composition of the glutenin fraction in the kernels.…”

Genetic variation of the durum wheat landrace Haurani from different agro-ecological regions

“…Its name derives from the Hauran plateau in Southern Syria from where it was spread by Bedouin migrations and seed exchanges between farmers (Elings 1991(Elings , 1992; in fact, farmers seeds exchanges in Syria account for more than 60%. Haurani presents a good adaptation to the Syrian climate, which is cold in winter and hot during the grain filling period.…”