New insight into the North-African durum wheat biodiversity: phenotypic variations for adaptive and agronomic traits

Wheat is one of the most important crop grown worldwide, and especially in the Mediterranean basin, durum wheat is the most used for typical food industry. Due to the variable climate conditions, one of the most important targets for breeders in these areas is the identification of high yielding genotypes. The objective of the present study was to evaluate phenotypic variability in a set of Tunisian and Algerian durum wheat germplasm based on adaptive and yield related traits. Analysis of variance showed significant variation among genotypes, and high heritability for the analyzed agronomic traits. Tiller number per spike and spiked tiller per spike, which are an indication of the crop's ability to maximize crop yield, ranged from 2.31 to 6.24 and 0.99 to 3.98 respectively. Heading date, one of the most important adaptive trait in cereal, also showed variability, ranging from 127 to 146 days after emergence. The 74 analyzed genotypes showed a high heritability value of thousand kernel weight (53.2%). Interestingly, genetic advance evaluated for thousand kernel weight was 13.77 g. The lowest but definitely moderate heritability value was recorded for tiller number per plant (42%), with a genetic advance of 0.51 tillers per plant. These data are an important starting point for the identification and future breeding of genotypes with higher genetic potential, important requirement for the production of high yielding wheat varieties.