Drought Tolerance Screening Under Controlled Conditions Predicts Ranking of Water-Limited Yield of Field-Grown Soybean Genotypes

PARDO, ESTEBAN MARIANO; VELLICCE, GABRIEL RICARDO; AGUIRREZABAL, LUIS ; PEREYRA IRUJO, GUSTAVO; ROCHA, CARLA MARÍA LOURDES; GARCÍA, MARÍA GABRIELA; PRIETO ANGUEIRA, SALVADOR; WELIN BJORN; SANCHEZ, JOSÉ ; LEDESMA, FERNANDO; CASTAGNARO ATILIO PEDRO

JOURNAL OF AGRONOMY AND CROP SCIENCE

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2014

0931-2250

Drought is a major limitation to crop yields worldwide. Screening for soybeanyield under water deficit is often a bottleneck in breeding programmes. Weassessed the validity of a standardized drought tolerance screening method topredict water-limited field performance of soybean in NW Argentina. First, todetermine the phenological period when yield of glasshouse-grown plants wasmore sensitive to water deficit, we applied treatments during 21 days in V7, R3 orR5 stages, being the period from R5 to R6 the most critical for yield. Afterwards,two glasshouse experiments were carried out to quantify the tolerance of eithereight or four genotypes, respectively, by applying a controlled water deficit ofconstant intensity during the critical period. Finally, yield data obtained in fieldtrials in Argentina across several locations and seasons classified according torainfall were analysed. Drought Susceptibility Index was calculated for eachexperiment and for field data, and rankings of tolerance were similar in all cases.This standardized method, which can be automated for high-throughput phenotyping,could represent a useful tool in breeding programmes for identifyingsoybean cultivars with improved performance under drought conditions.