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In cereal crops, environmental fluctuations affect different physiological processes during various developmental phases associated with the formation of yield components. Because these effects are coupled with cultivar-specific phenology, studies investigating environmental responses in different cultivars can give contradictory results regarding key phases impacting yield performance. To dissect how genotype-by-environment interactions affect grain yield in winter wheat, we estimated the sensitivities of yield components to variation in global radiation, temperature and precipitation in 220 cultivars across 81 time-windows ranging from double ridge to seed desiccation. Environmental sensitivity responses were prominent in the short-term physiological subphases of spike and kernel development, causing phenologically dependent, stage-specific genotype-by-environment interactions. Here we reconcile contradicting findings from previous studies and show previously undetected effects; for example, the positive impact of global radiation on kernel weight during canopy senescence. This deep insight into the three-way interactions between phenology, yield formation and environmental fluctuations provides comprehensive new information for breeding and modelling cereal crops.

The world cropping area for wheat exceeds that of any other crop, and high grain yields in intensive wheat cropping systems are essential for global food security. Breeding has raised yields dramatically in high-input production systems; however, selection under optimal growth conditions is widely believed to diminish the adaptive capacity of cultivars to less optimal cropping environments. Here, we demonstrate, in a large-scale study spanning five decades of wheat breeding progress in western Europe, where grain yields are among the highest worldwide, that breeding for high performance in fact enhances cultivar performance not only under optimal production conditions but also in production systems with reduced agrochemical inputs. New cultivars incrementally accumulated genetic variants conferring favourable effects on key yield parameters, disease resistance, nutrient use efficiency, photosynthetic efficiency and grain quality. Combining beneficial, genome-wide haplotypes could help breeders to more efficiently exploit available genetic variation, optimizing future yield potential in more sustainable production systems. Using large-scale data describing five decades of wheat breeding progress in western Europe, a study shows that breeding for high performance enhances wheat productivity under not only optimal conditions but also conditions with reduced agrochemical inputs.

Winter barley (Hordeum vulgareL.) can be a valuable supplement as whole plant silage for bioenergy production due to positive effects of plant cover over winter and the possibility of growing a subsequent second crop after barley. However, to be competitive with other bioenergy crops, barley dry matter yield (DMY) needs to be enhanced. Therefore, we tested a factorial of 96 barley experimental hybrids together with their parental lines for DMY, grain yield (GY), and yield‐associated traits in a multi‐environmental field plot trial with a practical focus. The average best‐parent heterosis (BPH) of GY was 7.7%, whereas average BPH of DMY was 9.1%. The higher GY of hybrids was mainly caused by the higher kernel number per ear. The variance of specific combining ability (SCA) was higher than that of general combining ability (GCA), revealing prevalence of non‐additive effects on barley DMY. Additionally, SCA values highly correlated with those of DMY and GY (r= 0.752 and r= 0.839, respectively), as well as with values of mid‐parent heterosis (MPH; r= 0.768 [DMY], r= 0.877 [GY]) and BPH (r= 0.695 [DMY], r= 0.768 [GY]). There was a correlation between the parental genetic distance and hybrid DMY, whereas no correlations were found between the parental per se and hybrid DMY and GY values. These results suggest that future hybrid breeding should be run in a separate program with a main focus on the establishment of heterotic pools and an increase in genetic diversity.