Performance of a durum wheat diversity panel under different management systems

Abstract

Thirty winter and spring durum wheat varieties and breeding lines were evaluated between 2020 and 2022 under low-input, conventional and organic management. Analysis of variance revealed statistically significant effects for the year, management, genotype and their interactions for heading, lodging, grain yield, grain width and length, test weight and thousand grain weight. In the case of ground cover, the genotype × management and the genotype × management × year interactions were not significant. In 2020 and 2022, the latest heading variety ‘Mv Makaróni’ headed on 20th and 21st of May, respectively, whilst in 2021, due to the rainy and cold spring weather, 73% of the varieties started to head only after this date. Lodging was observed only on the conventional sites in two years. The average yield of the experiment was 5.94 t ha⁻¹. For grain yield ‘Mv Vékadur’ and ‘NS Dur’ in the low-input and conventional trials, and genotypes ‘Sambadur’, ‘NS Žad’ and line MVTD12-23 in the organic trials were found as highly stable and best performing genotypes. Significant positive correlations were found between grain width and grain weight. Early ground coverage was measured in all three managements across two years and resulted in significant positive correlation with grain yield.