Diversity of carbon isotope discrimination in genetic resources of wheat

Summary

Strong drought tolerance is an important objective in breeding new wheat varieties. We compared the drought tolerance of land races and modern varieties of various spring wheat forms. 13C discrimination (CID) indicated how significantly the tested wheat varieties were inclined to drought tolerance. CID is a trait related to stomatal closure and consequently an important component of the tolerance to drought. Samples were grown in České Budĕjovice (CZ), from 2009 to 2012. Twenty-three varieties, comprising einkorn, emmer, spelt, land races and control variety of bread wheat were grown and tested. Results have shown some varieties achieved low CID values (which meant they were more inclined to the drought tolerance). There were emmer and spelt varieties among them in particular. The spelt varieties which were inclined to the drought tolerance most significantly were — Triticum spelta No. 8930, Tabor 23 and Tabor 22. The emmer varieties called May-Emmer and Weisser Sommer were also inclined to drought tolerance significantly. By contrast, the intermediate forms, the modern (control) varieties of bread wheat, and einkorn varieties, were expected to be less tolerant to drought as well. Some of the wheat land races (the spelt and the emmer in particular) reached low values of CID. Therefore, they can play the role of drought tolerance donors in the wheat breeding programmes.