Effects of Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus on Yield and Yield Components in Different Winter Wheat Genotypes

Abstract

Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus is a Luteovirus disease that affects small grain yields. The climatic conditions of the agricultural year favoured the development of vectors, so that the virus attack caused significant damage on different genotypes. The first visible symptom includes plant stunting and yellowing and purpling, so that plant height was the first traits affected reducing with 24.58 to 44.33 % compared to the unaffected plants. Regarding the main yield components their performance or reduced with 37.89 % to 74.35 % for weight of spike, 33.66 to 87.70% for number of grains per spike and from 50.90 to 88.03 % in case of weight of grains per spike. Grain yield as a complex and most important feature that characterizes a genotype was affected between 49.05 to 87.76 % which suggest that the infection can have a different intensity depending on certain morpho-physiological traits.