Physiological drivers of responses of grains per m2 to environmental and genetic factors in wheat

Most of the required increases in food production over next decades are expected to be achieved through crop yield. As wheat is essential for security it worrying that its yield gains last two were small. To achieve further critical continue increasing number grains per unit area (GN m-2), trait best related In this context, relevant identify main determinants GN m-2 response genetic and environmental factors as well trade-offs between them. present study we compiled a large database across literature analyse relative importance components when affected by or factors, producing small changes components, either numerical (the spikes m2, SN m-2; spike, spike-1) physiological (spike dry weight at anthesis, SDWa; fruiting efficiency, FE) determinants. The included 367 papers published in: (i) Field Crop Research (FCR), (ii) European Journal Agronomy (EJA), (iii) Science (CS) (iv) Pasture (CPS, formerly Australian Agricultural Research) 1990 2020. complete dataset was split into classes, depending on source experimental variation, environment genotype normalised remove differences experiments determine genotypic effects within each experiment. Normalised data showed responsiveness similarly explained both spike-1, but terms SDWa more than FE explaining variations m-2. Considering modified spike-1 On other hand, differently environment: way around factors. A trade-off observed although greater components.