# Genetic basis of wheat yield under dry and hot climates

Pauline Thomelin, Fabio Arsego, Habtamu Tura, Melissa Garcia, Penny Tricker, Paul Eckermann, Boris Parent, Delphine Fleury

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Pauline Thomelin, Fabio Arsego, Habtamu Tura, Melissa Garcia, Penny Tricker, et al.. Genetic basis of wheat yield under dry and hot climates. Interdrought V, Feb 2017, Hyderabad, India. 2017. [hal-01604363](https://hal.science/hal-01604363)

HAL Id: hal-01604363

https://hal.science/hal-01604363

Submitted on 2 Jun 2020

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<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Dr. Delphine Fleury**</figcaption></figure>

University of Adelaide, Glen Osmond, 5064,
South Australia,
Australia

E-mail: delphine.fleury@acpgf.com.au

**Dr. Delphine Fleury** completed her PhD in 2001 at the ENSAT (Toulouse, France) and her postdoctoral training in 2005 at the Department of Plant Systems Biology (VIB, Ghent, Belgium). Dr. Fleury joined the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics in Adelaide (Australia) in 2006. She runs the genetics program aiming to improve the tolerance of wheat and barley to drought

using quantitative genetics, physiology and omics. Her group particularly focused on the positional cloning of quantitative trait loci increasing yield under low rain-fed environment. She is also co-investigator with the ARC Industrial Transformation Hub linked to Australian breeding companies on genetics diversity and molecular breeding for wheat in a hot and dry climate.

## Genetic basis of wheat yield under dry and hot climates

Pauline Thomelin<fnref n="1" />, Fabio Arsego<fnref n="1" />, Habtamu Tura<fnref n="1" />, Melissa Garcia<fnref n="1" />, Penny Tricker<fnref n="1" />, Paul Eckermann<fnref n="1" />, Boris Parent<fnref n="2" />, Delphine Fleury<fnref n="1" />

In Australian dryland agriculture, grain crop yields are approximately 50% of their potential and are highly unpredictable. During the 1990's, the rate of productivity increase in Australian broad acre cropping improved by 3.4% annually but has since slowed and declined by -1.4% in drought years. A way to improve the drought tolerance of crops varieties is to discover new genes and alleles that allow plants to continue to grow and yield grain under water limited conditions. Although many quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified in wheat, few have been deployed in breeding programmes.

We cumulated QTL over 10 years on three wheat populations for yield, agronomical, physiological and morphological traits in various locations in Australia, India and Mexico. Genomic resources now enable us to make progress in fine mapping and

positional cloning of QTL in wheat. Target QTL that increases yield and yield components in hot and dry climates were fine mapped to genes level using the cv Chinese Spring reference sequence and whole genome shotgun sequences of Australian parental lines. We also investigated QTL function under controlled conditions to measure growth rate, transpiration, stomatal traits, and semi-controlled environments using deep soil bins, rainout shelter and irrigation. By measuring accurately the environmental variables and using ecophysiological models, we can dissect the response to the environment into elementary and simpler traits and identify the conditions where a QTL is specifically expressed. Such detailed information on QTL x environment interaction, physiological mechanism and fine mapping is crucial for breeding application.

<footnote n="1">¹University of Adelaide, Glen Osmond, 5064, South Australia, Australia</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²INRA LEPSE, Montpellier, 34060, France</footnote>

<footnote>*E-mail: delphine.fleury@acpgf.com.au</footnote>