Achieving yield stability by meta-mechanisms determining the stable canopy development in winter wheat

冬小麦的产量稳定性是德国农民选择品种的高度相关性状。我们对导致产量稳定性的生理机制的了解非常有限，因为评估基因型的产量稳定性需要多年的田间实验、地点、农业实践以及与其他基因型的比较，这是一个耗时且劳动密集的过程。在这里，我们建议使用概率方法结合表型组学和大规模建模来重新审视产量稳定性，这允许利用与产量变化相关的“元机制”。我们进一步假设，能够实现稳定的冠层发育在营养阶段的品种更稳定，由于氮和水溶性碳在营养器官的籽粒灌浆的存储。使用6个小麦品种相似的产量水平，但对比产量稳定性，一个机械功能结构植物模型，重点是控制物候，冠层发育，建筑和光合作用的元机制将参数化和评估。该模型将用于创建虚拟基因型，并在大量环境情景下模拟其冠层发育和产量。模型结果将用于确定哪些生理机制的组合导致稳定的产量。

Yield stability of winter wheat is a highly relevant trait for cultivar choice by German farmers. Our knowledge about the physiological mechanisms leading to yield stability is very limited because assessing the yield stability of a genotype requires field experiments across multiple years, locations, agriculture practices and comparisons with other genotypes, a time consuming and labour intensive procedure. Here we propose to revisit yield stability using the probabilistic approach in combination with phenomics and large-scale modelling, which allows exploiting the “meta-mechanisms” related to the variability in yield. We further hypothesize that cultivars able to achieve stable canopy development during the vegetative phase are more stable due to the storages of nitrogen and water soluble carbon in the vegetative organs for grain filling. Using six wheat cultivars with similar yield level but contrasting yield stability, a mechanistic functional-structural plant model focusing on the meta-mechanisms controlling the phenology, canopy development, architecture and photosynthesis will be parameterized and evaluated. This model will be used to create virtual genotypes and their canopy development and yield will be simulated with large number of environmental scenarios. The model outcomes will be used to identify which combinations of physiological mechanisms resulting stable yield.