Grain Weight Reductions in Wheat Associated with Semidwarfism: an Analysis of Grain Weight at Different Positions Within the Spike of Near-isogenic Lines

Semidwarf genes have made a major contribution to grain yield gains in wheat during this century. These genes have frequently been reported to increase grain number but decrease grain size. To analyse possible causes of this negative association between number of grains per head and mean grain weight, grains from different positions within the spikes were individually weighed in three isolines (standard-height, SH; semidwarf, SD; and dwarf, DD) of the spring wheat cultivar Maringa grown under field conditions. Dwarfing genes affected both grain number and grain weight. Increasing doses of Rht genes resulted in a decreased average grain weight (ca. 22 %) but in a greater increase in number of grains per m² (ca. 40%). Since the isogenic lines did not differ in either the number of spikes per m² or number of spikelets per spike, the frequencies of appearance of grains in the distal positions (florets 3 and 4) of the central spikelets and in the top spikelets of the spike was much higher for the SD and DD lines than for the SH line. Averaging across spikelets, basal grains (grains 1 and 2) of SH, SD and DD lines represented ca. 82, 73, and 69 %, respectively, of the total number of grains. On the other hand, grain 4 was almost absent in the SH line but represented around 10 % of the grains in the DD line. Averaging across lines and spikelets, basal grains weighed ca. 30 mg, which is approximately 20 % heavier than grain 3 (ca. 25 mg) and 85 % heavier than grain 4 (ca. 16 mg). Although there was a clear trend for a greater grain weight in the SH line (with no major differences between the SD and DD line) when basal grains were considered, grains 3 and 4 did not show any clear difference between lines. The fact that genotypes with Rht alleles had grains in the distal positions with a much higher frequency of appearance than in the SH line could be the main reason for their lower average grain weight. Therefore, the negative relationship between grain number and average grain weight might be not reflecting that competition for assimilates among grains of the DD and SD lines is stronger than that in the SH line.