Abstract

Drought stress is a major production constraint in crops globally. Crop wild relatives are important sources of resistance and tolerance for both biotic and abiotic stresses, respectively. A breeding program was initiated to introgress drought tolerance in sunflowers through hybridization between the wild species Helianthus argophyllus and the cultivated pool of H. annuus. Selection was carried out from the F-2 to F-5 segregating populations for the silver canopy, high cuticular wax, small leaf area, single heading and high oil content. Cuticular wax ranged between 8.72 & mu;g g(-1) and 17.19 & mu;g g(-1) in the F-5 offspring. The selected F-5 breeding lines were self-pollinated to obtain the F-6 generation. Thereafter, this F-6 was compared with the non-adapted elite sunflower germplasm in a factorial complete randomized design with different water treatments; i.e., comparing fully irrigated (100%, T0) versus 75% (T1), 50% (T2) and 25% (T3) of total irrigation. The comparison between the two types of the germplasm showed that drought-tolerant breeding lines had a comparatively lesser decrease in leaf area (0, 11, 22%) and shoot length (4, 21, 28%) than the elite germplasm, which experienced a decrease in leaf area (21%, 33% and 40%) and shoot length (17, 27 and 34%) under the various drought treatments. Moreover, drought-tolerant breeding lines had 100% more root shoot ratios than the elite germplasm (20%) in T3 when compared with control. Several drought-tolerant promising lines (D-2, D-5 and D-27) were selected due to their high leaf area, great root length and increased root to shoot ratio under T3. Some of the lines could be directly used for the development of drought-tolerant hybrids. Combining ability testing indicated that D-27 (F-7) was a good general combiner for seed yield plant(-1) and oil content after mating with male-line RSIN.82. Resulting hybrids could help to minimize seed yield loss due to water stress and to achieve profitable cultivation of sunflowers in arid regions of Pakistan.

Keywords

drought stress; introgression; leaf area; root to shoot ratio; wild species; yield loss

Published in

Agriculture
2023, Volume: 13, number: 6, article number: 1250

SLU Authors

• Ortiz Rios, Rodomiro Octavio

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Sargodha

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science
Genetics and Breeding


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13061250

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122455