Comparative assessment of food-fodder traits in a wide range of wheat germplasm for diverse biophysical target domains in South Asia

The paper compares food and straw fodder traits in wheat lines of 6 different CIMMYT wheat trials tested across 32 environments of South Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan). Experiments were conducted in the main spring wheat season with sowing time of mid-November to mid-December and harvest between March to April. Investigated and compared were grain yield (GY), straw yield (SY), straw nitrogen (N) content, neutral (NDF) and acid (ADF) detergent fiber, acid detergent lignin (ADL), and in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD). Highly significant (P < 0.0001) differences were observed between cultivar types for all traits. The proportional ranges in traits between the cultivar types were high for GY and SY (>60%), considerable (45%) for HI and straw N (40%), moderate for ADL (18%), and minor for NDF, ADF, and IVOMD (<10%). Across cultivar types GY and SY were significantly positive correlated but GY accounted for only 14% of the variation in SY. Positive fodder traits such as N and IVOMD tended to be negatively associated with GY, whereas negative traits such as NDF, ADF and ADL were positively associated with GY, significantly so (P < 0.05) in the cases of ADF and ADL. Except for one case, broad sense h 2 were stronger for GY than for SY. Among straw fodder quality traits, the negative fodder quality traits ADF showed the highest h 2 for all quality traits, with the exception of the two drought trials. Across all cultivar types only ADF was significantly (P < 0.05) positively related to GY. No significant (P > 0.05) relationships were observed between N, ADF and IVOMD and SY. Among cultivars consistent relationships were only observed between N and GY which were significantly (P = 0.03 to 0.009) inversely correlated in five out of the six cultivar types. Within cultivars types ADF varied by at least 2.3% units in HTNM and 1st DRYT and up to 4.9% units in ESWYT. By extrapolation such cultivar-dependent differences will matter at wheat straw trading.