| As the world’s main crop, the yield and quality of wheat is closely related to human’s lives. Breeder’s selection preference during the breeding process results in a more and more narrow genetic diversity. Wild emmer wheat as ordinary tetraploid ancestor of wheat is an important gene pool for wheat genetic improvement. It has many fine traits such as big ears, long grains, high protein content and abundant genetic diversity. Apart from that, compatible distant hybridization, chromosome cross and reconstruction with bread wheat make wild emmer more and more important in wheat breeding. Accordingly, in this study, the agronomic traits of 122 wild emmer materials from the Middle East were investigated, and 36 of which were carried on the quality traits analysis. Identification and exploring the excellent lines provide important germplasm resources for wheat breeding and for molecular biology research. The main results are as follows:1. Agronomic traits survey results showed that there were various agronomic traits differences between 122 wild emmer materials, with wide variation width, and many excellent agronomic traits. It can be used as germplasm resources to create new wheat varieties with specific target. The coefficient of variation ranked as number of productive ear(30.78%)> thousand grain weight(27.83%)> tiller number(27.81%)> grains per spike(22.06%)> internode length below spike(20.56%)> plant height(18.92%)> panicle length(12.90%)> heading stage(1.46%), indicating that these wild emmer wheat have quite rich genetic diversity. Most of the investigated materials were semi-erect type, the proportion was 72.13%. Compared to common wheat, the plant type of wild emmer was more dispersed. Heading date ranged from 192 to 205 days, all belong to special late-maturing type. Plant height ranged from 59 to 134 cm, mostly belong to 3 types: dwarf(27.87%), middle pole(25.41%) and semi-dwarf(21.31%). The average number of tillers was 14.13, with an average of 9.91 productive ears. Range of grains per spike was large(12 to 60), and the average grain number of all materials was 24.34. Average grains per spike of IG116187 material from Turkey Gaziantep region was up to 56, far higher than the number of grains per spike of other materials, and higher than the recent average grain number in Huang-Huai region, and the ear length of this material were the longest as well. Thousand grain weight ranges from 7.53 g to 30.72 g, average thousand grain weight were 17.68 g. Compared with the recent average thousand grain weight of wheat in Huang-Huai region, the thousand grain weight of wild emmer materials was lower.2. The results of correlation analysis between agronomic traits showed that creeping type of wild emmer have higher plant height, longer internode length below spike, and higher thousand grain weight. When the heading period longer, the tiller number, grain number and ear length will correspondingly higher, but internode length below spike was short, and grain weight was low. When increasing the number of tillers, the number of productive ear and grains per spike will significantly increase, panicle length will also corresponding increase, but thousand grain weight and internode length below spike will reduce. When plant height was high, not only internode length below spike will longer, but yield traits like panicle length, grains per spike and thousand grain weight will increase. When the number of productive ear increased, grains per spike and panicle length will correspondingly increase. But there was no significant correlation between the number of productive ear and the thousand grain weight. Materials with more grains per spike will have longer panicle length, but the grain weight will lighter. Materials with long internode length below spike generally have high thousand grain weight.3. Through principal component analysis using five main components to represent 9 agronomic traits, bear 88.502% of the raw data information. The results showed that the wild emmer material with moderate high first to fourth main component and with moderate fifth main component could be considered as ideal breeding material. Namely select materials with relatively more grain per spike, high plant height, more tiller, more erect, and moderate growth period as the ideal material for wheat breeding improvement.4. The quality traits test results showed that the protein content, wet gluten content and sedimentation values of 36 wild emmer materials were significantly higher than common wheat. The average protein content was 25.07%, the variation coefficient was7.90%. Materials derived from Mt Gilboa have highest protein content, wherein the protein content of Mt Gilboa 18 up to 29.51%. Wild emmer materials introduced from ICARDA protein content ranked in the middle, from Tabigha, Gamla and Gillbour protein content were low. Wet gluten content ranged from 46.7% to 66.4%, the average wet gluten content was 56.93%, and the coefficient of variation was 7.22%. Different sources of wild emmer material wet gluten content were similar to the protein content distribution. The settlement values of wild emmer were generally higher, minimum of 52.2ml, up to 165 ml, poor up 112.80 ml.5. Quality Traits correlation analysis results showed that the protein content, wet gluten content and sedimentation value had extremely significant positive correlations, coefficients all above 0.75, and the correlation between protein content and wet gluten content up to 0.948. Correlation analysis between agronomic traits and quality traits showed that panicle length was significantly negatively correlated with quality traits, and plant height was significantly negatively correlated with protein content and wet gluten content, but there is no significant correlation between thousand grain weight and agronomic traits. |
