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Common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a major staple food crop, providing a fifth of food calories and proteins to the worldā€™s human population. Despite the impressive growth in global wheat production in recent decades, further increases in grain yield are required to meet future demands. Here we estimated genetic gain and genotype stability for grain yield (GY) and determined the trait associations that contributed uniquely or in combination to increased GY, through a retrospective analysis of top-performing genotypes selected from the elite spring wheat yield trial (ESWYT) evaluated internationally during a 14-year period (2003 to 2016). Fifty-six ESWYT genotypes and four checks were sown under optimally irrigated conditions in three phenotyping trials during three consecutive growing seasons (2018ā€“2019 to 2020ā€“2021) at Norman E. Borlaug Research Station, Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. The mean GY rose from 6.75 (24th ESWYT) to 7.87 t haāˆ’1 (37th ESWYT), representing a cumulative increase of 1.12 t haāˆ’1. The annual genetic gain for GY was estimated at 0.96% (65 kg haāˆ’1 yearāˆ’1) accompanied by a positive trend in genotype stability over time. The GY progress was mainly associated with increases in biomass (BM), grain filling rate (GFR), total radiation use efficiency (RUE_total), grain weight per spike (GWS), and reduction in days to heading (DTH), which together explained 95.5% of the GY variation. Regression lines over the years showed significant increases of 0.015 kg māˆ’2 yearāˆ’1 (p < 0.01), 0.074 g māˆ’2 yearāˆ’1 (p < 0.05), and 0.017 g MJāˆ’1 yearāˆ’1 (p < 0.001) for BM, GFR, and RUE_total, respectively. Grain weight per spike exhibited a positive but no significant trend (0.014 g yearāˆ’1, p = 0.07), whereas a negative tendency for DTH was observed (āˆ’ 0.43 days yearāˆ’1, p < 0.001). Analysis of the top ten highest-yielding genotypes revealed differential GY-associated trait contributions, demonstrating that improved GY can be attained through different mechanisms and indicating that no single trait criterion is adopted by CIMMYT breeders for developing new superior lines. We conclude that CIMMYTā€™s Bread Wheat Breeding Program has continued to deliver adapted and more productive wheat genotypes to National partners worldwide, mainly driven by enhancing RUE_total and GFR and that future yield increases could be achieved by intercrossing genetically diverse top performer genotypes.
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CIMMYT manages Intellectual Assets as International Public Goods. The user is free to download, print, store and share this work. In case you want to translate or create any other derivative work and share or distribute such translation/derivative work, please contact CIMMYT-Knowledge-Center@cgiar.org indicating the work you want to use and the kind of use you intend; CIMMYT will contact you with the suitable license for that purpose
Journal
Scientific Reports
Journal volume
14
Journal issue
1
Article number
10975
Place of Publication
London (United Kingdom)
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
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