RELATIONSHIP OF COLEOPTILE LENGTH AND PLANT HEIGHT IN WINTER WHEAT ACCESSIONS

Climate change prognoses suggest more unpredictable and less favourable conditions for cereal crop establishment in Europe. The development of varieties possessing long coleoptiles could improve winter wheat environmental adaptability. A total of 564 winter wheat control varieties and breeding lines developed basically using European winter wheat germplasm were screened for coleoptile length and plant height during 2004-2009. The filter paper towel method showed significant differences among the accessions. Most of the accessions (50.8%) possessed a coleoptile length ranging between 3.00 and 6.00 cm. The correlation between coleoptile length and plant height was weak in 2005 and 2006 (respectively, r=0.485* & 0.468*, p <= 0.01), but medium (respectively, r=0.578* - 0.625*) in 2004, 2007-2009. Accessions screening extent could be reduced selecting accessions with acceptable plant height (85-100 cm). Accessions percentage that fitted to this group ranged from 23.4% in 2006 to 67.9% in 2009 and average of 6 years was 40.3%. Among the 564 tested accessions, 36 breeding lines or 6.4% possessed coleoptiles longer than 8 cm but none of them exceeded 10 cm. Plant heights of these accessions ranged from 94 to 118 cm. The 13 accessions possessed acceptable plant height. The lines possessing in pedigree varieties Flair and Pegassos (each in 7 lines) were the most frequent. This data shows that the new winter wheat breeding lines possessing long coleoptiles in combination with acceptable plant height can be developed using European winter wheat varieties.