WHOLE PLANT PHENOTYPING TO SELECT CLIMATE-READY DURUM WHEAT GENETIC RESOURCES

Durum wheat is an important crop for agriculture and the economy of Mediterranean countries where more than half of the crop is culti vated. The upcoming climate change, and especially the shortage of water in the Mediterranean area is going to strongly aff ect wheat producti on and quality. While genomic tools are in place for adapti ng major crop species to environmental stresses, fast selecti on and quanti fi cati on of phenotypic traits or components remains challenging. Traditi onal phenotyping is a labor intensive and ti me consuming procedure based mainly on destructi ve methods that greatly limit its applicati on. The use of phenotyping automated platf orms may overcome these limitati ons, collecti ng large data sets high-throughput and non-destructi vely. In this study, high-throughput phenotyping was used to characterize a selecti on of 40 durum wheat landraces held by CNR-IBBR insti tute. Shoot and root wheat morphology were investi gated to dissect mechanisms underlying wheat resistance and resilience to drought. In a fi rst experiment, image in diff erent spectral ranges was used to examine the dynamic phenotypic response to reduced water availability, in associati on with stress indicators (plant biomass and biovolume, water use effi ciency and the plant stress index). The root system architecture of each landrace was also investi gated to select those more useful for plants drought adptati on. Root phenotyping was carried out using the GROWSCREEN-Page platf orm at the IBG-2, Forschungszentrum Julich GmbH, Germany, which allows the acquisiti on of ti me series of the developing root system, and quanti fi cati on of short-term variati ons. Most traits showed a large variati on within the genotypes. In general, root length traits contributed more than shape and branching related traits on the overall variability of the root system architecture among genotypes. This approach allowed to select, on the basis of the whole plant phenotypic traits, a set of durum wheat landraces, potenti ally more adaptable to the upcoming climate change.