Anatomical traits and structural components of peduncle associated with lodging in Avena sativa L.

Received: May 14th, 2020 ; Accepted: June 19th, 2020 ; Published: January 5th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] dramatically reduces the yield of cereals and increases the difficulty of mechanical harvesting. Because it is a complex phenomenon, new cultivars with genetic resistance to lodging is a sustainable alternative in agricultural production systems. This resistance is associated with a combination of factors, such as stem thickness and stiffness, being closely linked to anatomical traits and structural carbohydrates present in the stem. In the present study we compared, under field conditions, eight contrasting oat cultivars in terms of lodging resistance. Our aim in this study was to investigate the association of anatomical traits and structural components of the peduncle with resistance to lodging, aiming to assist in the plant selection process. In addition, a second objective was to understand the genetic dissimilarity among oat cultivars according to the characters studied. Some characteristics for potential indirect selection were studied in this work and if correlated with lodging can be used to identify superior genotypes. From the anatomical point of view, the correlation obtained between the internal vascular bundle and the lodging resistance factor allowed us to confirm that this trait can be used in indirect selection to lodging resistance. The structural components of peduncle, in the two ways explored in the present study, comparison of mean and correlation, did not demonstrate the potential to be used exclusively as plant selection characters traits for lodging resistance. There is noticeable variability in oat cultivars for most stem traits