Agronomic performance of wheat cultivars and their molecular characterization

Abstract

Creation of new higher yield cultivars, adaptation of existing germplasm to a global climate change, increasing resistance to diseases in new genotypes are some of the tasks that breeding have in front of it. The objectives of this research were to assess GE interaction in two different environments across two vegetation seasons and to do association analysis based on the results of the phenotypic and molecular evaluation. Grain samples were obtained from 96 winter wheat cultivars grown in 2011/12 and 2012/13 at two locations in the South Pannonia Basin region and population was profiled with 28 microsatellites. The share of genotype is high and amounts 24.84%, while the share of environments was 21.06%, when yield was evaluated. The GE interaction was also statistically significant and amounts 51.58% of the total variance. Microsatellites that exhibited a relation with yield by GLM and MLM model were: gwm357, gwm339, cfa2114, gwm631, gwm495, gwm190, barc1121 and gwm437. Markers that have demonstrated the stability of the relationship with yield in different environments can be recommended as potentially useful in wheat breeding.