here - First Legume Society Conference (LSC1)

Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Phenotyping for drought stress tolerance in faba beans – from the lab to the field
C Balko 1 , A Giesemann 2 , W Link 3 , G Welna 3 , O Sass 4
1 Julius Kühn Institute, Groß Lüsewitz, Sanitz, Germany
2 Von Thünen Institute, Braunschweig, Germany
3 Department of Crop Science, Göttingen University, Germany
4 Norddeutsche Pflanzenzucht, Hans-Georg Lembke KG, Germany
Faba beans are well adapted to the cool climatic conditions in Northern Europe. They have a
high yield potential, but yield stability is often low. One reason for this is drought stress. Winter
faba beans with a developmental advantage of about 2 - 4 weeks compared to summer types can
use winter precipitation more effective. However, little is known about the variability with regard
to physiological differences in their drought stress response. To get information on this, 200
(winter) faba bean inbred lines are phenotyped under highly controlled conditions in single
leaf/leaf disc tests regarding physiological traits related to drought tolerance. First results of the
lab tests show a significant influence of drought stress on relative leaf water content (86.8 –
91.2% in control vs. 11.6 – 56.1% in stress treatment), content of free proline (0.3 – 6.2 µmol/g
DM vs. 167.2– 614.8 µmol/g DM) and soluble sugars (139.6 – 1302.1 µmol/g DM vs. 612.1 –
1746.9 µmol/g DM), membrane stability index (74.5 – 85.5 % vs. 13,.1 – 76.5 %) and chlorophyll
content (23.9 – 49.3 SPAD units vs. 21.4 – 45.3 SPAD units) of the lines as well as a significant
interaction between lines and the stress factor for all traits. To relate these results to field
conditions, rain out-shelter trials are carried out with a subset of 44 out of these 200 inbred lines
for determining yield and yield parameters under control vs. stress conditions. As a trait related to
water use efficiency 13 C discrimination is regarded. The first rain out-shelter trial in 2012 revealed
differences in yield response between genotypes as well as control and stress conditions (7.1 – 37
g/plant in control vs. 6.2 – 18.2 g/plant in stress treatment). Seed number per plant was more
influenced by the drought stress than thousand kernel weight.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) and the Federal
Office of Agriculture and Food (BLE) for financial support (OE 139/11 IF).
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