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      Deep Soil Water-Use Determines the Yield Benefit of Long-Cycle Wheat

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          Abstract

          Wheat production in southern Australia is reliant on autumn (April-May) rainfall to germinate seeds and allow timely establishment. Reliance on autumn rainfall can be removed by sowing earlier than currently practiced and using late summer and early autumn rainfall to establish crops, but this requires slower developing cultivars to match life-cycle to seasonal conditions. While slow-developing wheat cultivars sown early in the sowing window (long-cycle), have in some cases increased yield in comparison to the more commonly grown fast-developing cultivars sown later (short-cycle), the yield response is variable between environments. In irrigated wheat in the sub-tropics, the variable response has been linked to ability to withstand water stress, but the mechanism behind this is unknown. We compared short- vs. long-cycle cultivars × time of sowing combinations over four seasons (2011, 2012, 2015, and 2016) at Temora, NSW, Australia. Two seasons (2011 and 2012) had above average summer fallow (December–March) rain, and two seasons had below average summer fallow rain (2015 and 2016). Initial plant available water in each season was 104, 91, 28, and 27 mm, respectively. Rainfall in the 30 days prior to flowering (approximating the critical period for yield determination) in each year was 8, 6, 14, and 190 mm, respectively. We only observed a yield benefit in long-cycle treatments in 2011 and 2012 seasons where there was (i) soil water stored at depth (ii) little rain during the critical period. The higher yield of long-cycle treatments could be attributed to greater deep soil water extraction (<1.0 m), dry-matter production and grain number. In 2015, there was little rain during the critical period, no water stored at depth and no difference between treatments. In 2016, high in-crop rainfall filled the soil profile, but high rainfall during the critical period removed crop reliance on deep water, and yields were equivalent. A simulation study extended our findings to demonstrate a median yield benefit in long-cycle treatments when the volume of starting soil water was increased. This work reveals environmental conditions that can be used to quantify the frequency of circumstances where long-cycle wheat will provide a yield advantage over current practice.

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              Number of kernels in wheat crops and the influence of solar radiation and temperature

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Plant Sci
                Front Plant Sci
                Front. Plant Sci.
                Frontiers in Plant Science
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-462X
                15 May 2020
                2020
                : 11
                : 548
                Affiliations
                [1] 1The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Agriculture and Food , Adelaide, SA, Australia
                [2] 2Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, La Trobe University , Melbourne, VIC, Australia
                [3] 3The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Agriculture and Food , Canberra, ACT, Australia
                [4] 4Research School of Biology, The Australian National University , Canberra, ACT, Australia
                Author notes

                Edited by: Abraham J. Escobar-Gutiérrez, Institut National de Recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE), France

                Reviewed by: Agnieszka Klimek-Kopyra, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland; Ketema Tilahun Zeleke, Charles Sturt University, Australia

                *Correspondence: Bonnie M. Flohr, bonnie.flohr@ 123456csiro.au

                This article was submitted to Crop and Product Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science

                Article
                10.3389/fpls.2020.00548
                7242739
                32499799
                8f68da5d-f400-442f-bd3c-095e6abe3465
                Copyright © 2020 Flohr, Hunt, Kirkegaard, Rheinheimer, Swan, Goward, Evans and Bullock.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 09 August 2019
                : 09 April 2020
                Page count
                Figures: 6, Tables: 6, Equations: 2, References: 65, Pages: 13, Words: 0
                Funding
                Funded by: Grains Research and Development Corporation 10.13039/501100000980
                Categories
                Plant Science
                Original Research

                Plant science & Botany
                evaporation,fallow rainfall,harvest index,transpiration efficiency,water use efficiency

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