Effects of Soil Flooding on Growth and Grain Yield of Populations of Tetraploid and Hexaploid Species of Wheat

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Abstract
Single populations of three hexaploid species of wheat, Triticum aestivum, Triticum spelta and Triticum macha, and two populations of the tetraploid wheat, Triticum dicoccum (Pontus and Bordeaux), were grown in a greenhouse experiment at a range of soil flooding regimes: free draining, two levels of transient flooding and continuous flooding. Increasing severity of flooding treatment resulted in increased soil reduction and an increase in the concentration of reduced iron and manganese in the experimental soil, and also resulted in a reduction in vegetative growth, number of inflorescences, grain number and grain weight. There were, however, large differences between the wheat populations in the degree of reduction in yield caused by flooding. The population of T. macha was much more flooding-tolerant than the other hexaploid species and the ‘Pontus’ population of the emmer wheat, T. dicoccum, was more tolerant than the ‘Bordeaux’ population of this species and than T. spelta and T. aestivum. The results are discussed in relation to the origin of the populations.

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