Growing-season rainfall, ear number and the water-limited potential yield of wheat in south-western Australia
Heping Zhang A D , Neil C. Turner B , Narelle Simpson C and Michael L. Poole AA CSIRO Plant Industry, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia.
B Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, M080, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
C Department of Agriculture and Food, 10 Dore Street, Katanning, WA 6317, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: heping.zhang@csiro.au
Crop and Pasture Science 61(4) 296-303 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP09288
Submitted: 9 October 2009 Accepted: 5 March 2010 Published: 12 April 2010
Abstract
Knowledge of the contribution of ear number per unit area, grains per ear, and kernel weight to grain yield is important in understanding the limits to the water-limited potential yield of wheat in rain-fed agricultural regions. This paper analyses the relationships between grain yield, yield components and growing-season rainfall using data from the low-, medium-, and high-rainfall zones of the cropping region of south-western Australia. The aim of the paper is to quantify the contribution of ear number, grains per ear and kernel weight to grain yield and define the yield components of wheat required to achieve its water-limited yield. The grain yield of wheat was closely related to the number of grains per unit area (r2 = 0.90) and ears/m2 (r2 = 0.75), but poorly correlated with kernel weight (r2 = 0.30) and grains/ear (r2 = 0.09). The number of grains per unit area was highly related (r2 = 0.75) to the number of ears per unit area across the rainfall zones of the cropping region, and strongly correlated (r2 = 0.88–0.94) to the spike dry weight at anthesis. The highest yields achieved in the field were close to the water-limited potential estimated using the French and Schultz method. To achieve this water-limited potential, wheat requires 1 ear per m2 for every mm of growing-season rainfall (r2 = 0.92). We conclude that the number of ears per unit area is the most important factor required in order to achieve high yields of up to a yield of 6 t/ha in wheat in rain-fed south-western Australia.
Acknowledgments
We thank several technical staff at CSIRO, Asha Jogia, Alex Winter, Tammi Short, Zhenhua Zhang, Justin Laycock, for assistance in data collection, and David Allan and Vince Lambert at the Department of Agriculture and Food in Western Australia at Katanning for agronomic management of the trials at Kojonup. We acknowledge the Kojonup Crop Research Group for helpful discussion on the project, and Mr John Young and Mr Peter Macleay for providing sites for the field experiments in Kojonup. We also acknowledge Ms Penny Riffkin in the Department of Primary Industry in Victoria for helpful discussion. The project was supported by CSIRO, the Department of Agriculture and Food of Western Australia and the Grains Research and Development Corporation. We thank Drs Jairo Palta and Steve Milroy for comments on an earlier draft of the paper.
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