Wheat and barley cultivars show plant traits acclimation and increase grain yield under simulated shade in Mediterranean conditions

Abstract

Agroforestry systems are reported as climate‐resilient productive systems, but it is yet unclear how tree shade affects crops performance. The aim of this work was to assess how the phenology, plant traits and grain yield of wheat and barley were affected by shade. In an open greenhouse experiment, we cultivated in pots nine cultivars differing in precocity for each species and imposed three artificial shading levels (S0 ~ 0%, S1 ~ 25%, S2 ~ 50%) at the start of cereal booting. Our results showed that shade speeded up first growth stages in both species, until the starting of milk development. Barley showed consistent phenological responses to the three irradiance levels among cultivars, but not wheat that showed larger phenological differences among cultivars at moderate shade. Deep shade prolonged the time needed for wheat grain ripening. Both species increased grain yield by 15%–20% with shade, driven by shade‐acclimations of plant traits that differed among species. For wheat, grain yield was determined by the assemblage of traits that contribute to yield, such as grain weight, precocity and non‐photochemical quenching, while, for barley, SPAD value, precocity to reach phenological stages, grains per spike and plant height had the strongest influence. These traits varied widely among cultivars and seem of interest to identify best suited cultivars for shading conditions of Mediterranean agroforestry systems.

Productivity, biodiversity trade-offs, and farm income in an agroforestry versus an arable system

“…Competition between trees and arable crops for resources such as water, light and nutrients has been cited as the major cause of arable yield reductions in agroforestry systems (Jose et al, 2004), although cultivar selection programs have potential to mitigate this (Arenas-Corraliza et al, 2021). Our finding of negative associations between weed cover and yield suggests that weed competition could also be a factor in organic agroforestry systems, although we cannot demonstrate any causal relationship.…”

Competition, stress and benefits: Trees and crops in the transition zone of a temperate short rotation alley cropping agroforestry system

“…In the present study, a slight delay in the phenological development of winter wheat and barley in the transition zone was observed, and plants remained small and developed grains with lower thousand grain and hectoliter weights compared with the control (data not shown, Lamerre, 2017). Several recent studies showed that tree shading can cause delayed maturity, negatively affect yield components and finally lead to reduced yields in field crops (e.g., Arenas‐Corraliza et al., 2020; Blanchet et al., 2021; Inurreta‐Aguirre et al., 2018; Qiao et al., 2020; Schmidt, Nendel, et al., 2019; Surki et al., 2020). For field‐to‐forest transition zones, simulations of Schmidt, Nendel, et al.…”

Detection of meteorological influence on bread wheat quality in Hebei province, China based on the gradient boosting decision tree

“…Sunlight represents light intensity that is vital for crop growth. Shading experiments to mimic reduced light intensity have demonstrated a reduction in leaf nitrogen concentration, depression of plant nitrogen uptake and nitrogen translocation to grain ( Li et al., 2005 ; Mu et al., 2010 ; Shimoda and Sugikawa, 2020 ; Arenas-Corraliza et al., 2021 ). Our result highlighted abundant light for the whole growth season could contribute to GPC improvement.…”