Dark induced senescence as a tool in breeding wheat for optimum senescence pattern

Senescence can influence: (1) leaf area duration, (2) area of transpiringtissue and (3) translocation of nutrients – mainly nitrogen to grain.Therefore, selection for optimum senescence pattern might be efficient forimproving performance of wheat in a given environment. This study wasconducted to investigate the feasibility of a seedling test for estimatinggenotypic differences in senescence rate of wheat. We studied the responseof several wheat genotypes to dark exposure of seedlings, by measuring therate of chlorophyll loss in the first leaf. The rate of chlorophyll loss variedsignificantly among genotypes, the highest rate being more than double ofthe lowest. Linear regression accounted for most of the chlorophyll contentvariation during dark treatment in all cultivars. Significant correlation wasfound between the rate of chlorophyll loss following exposure to darknessand chlorophyll loss during aging in an environment relatively free ofdiseases and stresses. A good correlation was also found between theresponse of several genotypes to dark exposure and chlorophyll loss ofseedlings following starvation. We conclude that a seedling test for darkinduced senescence might allow an easy characterization of senescencepattern, allowing increased genetic progress in its optimization.