Dry matter remobilization from different plant parts of six durum wheat genotypes under water-restricted conditions and its compensatory effects on grain yield

The current research aimed to determine the contribution of dry matter (DM) stored in different plant parts to grain growth and the ability of this dry matter to compensate for the effects of the decrease in grain yield under water restrictions that occur during the post-anthesis period. This research was carried out under field conditions for 2 years in the Hatay province of Turkiye (36 degrees 15 ' N, 36 degrees 13 ' E). These cultivars were sown on 27 November in the first year and 10 December in the second year. Cultivars were sown into 6.0x1.2 m subplots with a row spacing of 0.20 m. The seeding density was 450 seeds m(-2) in both experiments. Experiments were conducted in a randomized complete block with a split-plot arrangement with four replicates of treatments as the main plots and cultivars as the subplots. Six durum wheat cultivars were evaluated under two irrigation regimes: irrigation until physiological maturity (I1) and irrigation until anthesis (I2). Remobilization of total DM was significantly greater under I2 (1374 mg main stem(-1)) than that under I1 (1124 mg main stem(-1)). The largest share of DM remobilization in both irrigation regimes belonged to the pre-anthesis reserves. The compensatory effect of pre-anthesis DM reserves was also different in varieties. The highest value was found in the Zenit and the lowest in the Harran-95 and Amanos-97 cultivars. Because of the significant differences between the genotypes in terms of compensatory effects, it should be necessary to consider the ability to compensate for such ecological conditions and this can be an important selection feature in inbreeding.