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Enhancing wheat productivity by implementing a comprehensive approach that combines irrigation, nutrition, and organic amendments shows potential for collectively enhancing crop performance. This study examined the individual and combined effects of using irrigation systems (IS), foliar potassium bicarbonate (PBR) application, and compost application methods (CM) on nine traits related to the growth, physiology, and yield of the Giza-171 wheat cultivar. Analysis of variance revealed significant (P ≤ 0.05) main effects of IS, PBR, and CM on wheat growth, physiology, and yield traits over the two growing seasons of the study. Drip irrigation resulted in a 16% increase in plant height, leaf area index, crop growth rate, yield components, and grain yield compared to spray irrigation. Additionally, the application of foliar PBR at a concentration of 0.08 g/L boosted these parameters by up to 22% compared to the control. Furthermore, the application of compost using the role method resulted in enhanced wheat performance compared to the treatment including mix application. Importantly, the combined analysis revealed that the three-way interaction between the three factors had a significant effect (P ≤ 0.05) on all the studied traits, with drip irrigation at 0.08 g PBR rate and role compost application method (referred as Drip_0.08g_Role) resulting in the best performance across all traits, while sprinkle irrigation without PBR and conventional mixed compost method (referred as sprinkle_CK_Mix) produced the poorest results. This highlights the potential to synergistically improve wheat performance through optimized agronomic inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen is an essential element for maize growth, but excessive application can lead to various environmental and ecological issues, including water pollution, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss. Hence, developing maize hybrids resilient to low-N conditions is vital for sustainable agriculture, particularly in nitrogen-deficient soils. Combining ability and genetic relationships among parental lines is crucial for breeding superior hybrids under diverse nitrogen levels. This study aimed to assess the genetic diversity of maize inbred lines using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and evaluate their combining ability to identify superior hybrids under low-N and recommended conditions. Local and exotic inbred lines were genotyped using SSR markers, revealing substantial genetic variation with high gene diversity (He = 0.60), moderate polymorphism information content (PIC = 0.54), and an average of 3.64 alleles per locus. Twenty-one F1 hybrids were generated through a diallel mating design using these diverse lines. These hybrids and a high yielding commercial check (SC-131) were field-tested under low-N and recommended N conditions. Significant variations (p < 0.01) were observed among nitrogen levels, hybrids, and their interaction for all recorded traits. Additive genetic variances predominated over non-additive genetic variances for grain yield and most traits. Inbred IL3 emerged as an effective combiner for developing early maturing genotypes with lower ear placement. Additionally, inbreds IL1, IL2, and IL3 showed promise as superior combiners for enhancing grain yield and related traits under both low-N and recommended conditions. Notably, hybrids IL1×IL4, IL2×IL5, IL2×IL6, and IL5×IL7 exhibited specific combining abilities for increasing grain yield and associated traits under low-N stress conditions. Furthermore, strong positive associations were identified between grain yield and specific traits like plant height, ear length, number of rows per ear, and number of kernels per row. Due to their straightforward measurability, these relationships underscore the potential of using these traits as proxies for indirect selection in early breeding generations, particularly under low-N stress. This research contributes to breeding nitrogen-efficient maize hybrids and advances our understanding of the genetic foundations for tolerance to nitrogen limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The University of Nebraska has bred some of the most winter hardy wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars in the United States. With the advent of a new race of stem rust in Africa, the breeding program identified a testing site in northern Egypt, a Mediterranean environment, for seedling disease resistance screening. Quite surprisingly, the Nebraska winter wheat lines flowered when grown in northern Egypt, indicating the lines were vernalized. To confirm this result, a panel of 112 Nebraska winter wheat genotypes and three commercially grown Egyptian spring wheat check cultivars were grown in three replicates in a randomized incomplete block design at two locations for 3 years (2016/2017–2018/2019) in Egypt. Seven traits were measured on all genotypes (the number of days to flowering; total chlorophyll content; plant height; leaf, stem, and stripe rust reaction; and grain yield). The winter wheat genotypes flowered and several of them were not significantly different in grain yield from the spring cultivars. A multi‐trait stability index identified 22 genotypes (20% selection intensity, the local checks, and 19 lines from the United States) for good performance. This study provides novel evidence that winter wheat can flower in northern Egypt, can be used for adult plant resistance screening, and provide a grain yield comparable to the commercially grown spring wheat cultivars. Our findings are expected to facilitate future efforts to hybridize winter‐by‐spring lines to develop new genotypes with unique combinations of genes to improve grain yield production, adaptation, disease resistance, and climate resiliency. Core Ideas: All winter lines flowered, with several lines having grain yield similar or higher than the spring cultivars.The winter wheat lines flowered, thus adult plant resistance to disease can be measured in Egypt.This study provides evidence that winter wheat grown in Egypt can provide yield comparable to spring wheat.Our findings are expected to facilitate future efforts to hybridize winter‐by‐spring lines to develop new genotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, climate change could hinder future food security that concurrently implies the importance of investigating drought stress and genotype screening under stressed environments. Hence, the current study was performed to screen 45 diverse maize inbred lines for 18 studied traits comprising phenological, physiological, morphological, and yield characters under optimum and water stress conditions for two successive growing seasons (2018 and 2019). The results showed that growing seasons and water regimes significantly influenced (p < 0.01) most of the studied traits, while inbred lines had a significant effect (p < 0.01) on all of the studied traits. The findings also showed a significant increase in all studied characters under normal conditions compared to drought conditions, except chlorophyll content, transpiration rate, and proline content which exhibited higher levels under water stress conditions. Furthermore, the results of the principal component analysis indicated a notable distinction between the performance of the 45 maize inbred lines under normal and drought conditions. In terms of grain yield, the drought tolerance index (DTI) showed that Nub60 (1.56), followed by Nub32 (1.46), Nub66 (1.45), and GZ603 (1.44) were the highest droughttolerant inbred lines, whereas Nub46 (0.38) was the lowest drought-tolerant inbred line. These drought-tolerant inbred lines were able to maintain a relatively high grain yield under normal and stress conditions, whereas those drought-sensitive inbred lines showed a decline in grain yield when exposed to drought conditions. The hierarchical clustering analysis based on DTI classified the forty-five maize inbred lines and eighteen measured traits into three column- and row-clusters, as inbred lines in cluster-3 followed by those in cluster-2 exhibited greater drought tolerance in most of the studied traits. Utilizing the multi-trait stability index (MTSI) criterion in this study identified nine inbred lines, including GZ603, as stable genotypes in terms of the eighteen studied traits across four environments. The findings of the current investigation motivate plant breeders to explore the genetic potential of the current maize germplasm, especially in water-stressed environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]