Comparative assessment of food-fodder traits in a wide range of wheat germplasm for diverse biophysical target domains in South Asia

Abstract The paper compares food and straw fodder traits in wheat lines of 6 different CIMMYT wheat trials tested across 32 environments of South Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan). Experiments were conducted in the main spring wheat season with sowing time of mid-November to mid-December and harvest between March to April. Investigated and compared were grain yield (GY), straw yield (SY), straw nitrogen (N) content, neutral (NDF) and acid (ADF) detergent fiber, acid detergent lignin (ADL), and in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD). Highly significant (P  60%), considerable (45%) for HI and straw N (40%), moderate for ADL (18%), and minor for NDF, ADF, and IVOMD ( 2 were stronger for GY than for SY. Among straw fodder quality traits, the negative fodder quality traits ADF showed the highest h 2 for all quality traits, with the exception of the two drought trials. Across all cultivar types only ADF was significantly (P   0.05) relationships were observed between N, ADF and IVOMD and SY. Among cultivars consistent relationships were only observed between N and GY which were significantly (P = 0.03 to 0.009) inversely correlated in five out of the six cultivar types. Within cultivars types ADF varied by at least 2.3% units in HTNM and 1st DRYT and up to 4.9% units in ESWYT. By extrapolation such cultivar-dependent differences will matter at wheat straw trading.