Genetic variability in agro-morphological and quality traits of Mediterranean durum wheat landraces

Durum wheat landraces are still cultivated to take advantage of their excellent grain and straw quality, adaptation to abiotic stresses, and extremely wide variety of uses. The safeguarding and rehabilitation of genetic inheritance requires genetic characterization and evaluation. In this study, forty durum wheat landraces originating from Mediterranean countries were evaluated according to agro-morphological and technological properties. We show that the germplasm was highly variable. The mean yellow pigment and protein content was higher in landraces (15.58%; 7.32 ppm) than in the Moroccan cultivars used as controls (14.6%; 5.48 ppm). In addition, principal component analysis identified five groups showing variable agronomic and qualitative characteristics that might be useful in the rational design of breeding programs

Genotype x Environment interaction for quality traits in durum wheat cultivars adapted to different environments

The quality traits of durum wheat are important for the utilization by the industries. These traits may be influenced by genotype and interaction of genotype and environment (GxE). To evaluate the effects of genotype, environment and genotype x environment interaction on quality traits such as vitreousness, SDS sedimentation test, yellow pigment index, protein content and test weight, twelve Moroccan durum wheat cultivars representing a range of agronomic adaptation were tested in five locations representing a range of environments in three growing seasons. The results indicated significant effects of genotype, environment and GxE for all the quality traits. The extent of these effects differed; for SDSsedimentation volumes, yellow pigment and test weight, the component of variation due to genotype was larger than due to the environment, indicating the greater influence of genotypes on these traits. However, for vitreousness and protein content, the effect of environment was higher than the effect due to genotypes. Thus, these traits are controlled greatly by environmental effects than genetics. The variation due to GxE was higher than that of genotype for vitreousness and test weight, indicating high GxE interaction effect and less genotypic stability for these traits. For protein content, where the environmental effect was greater than that of genotype and GxE effect, multiple environmental trials are necessary in order to determine protein content of a cultivar. For other traits,  preliminary evaluations can be done in one environment and good performing ones can be selected for multiple environmental trials