Development and Evaluation of a Greenhouse Testing Procedure for Cold-Hardiness in Hard Red Winter Wheat

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to develop a greenhouse test for comparing the cold tolerance of winter wheat genotypes. Winter-survival is a complex trait and in field trials it has low heritability, consequently, selection will be facilitated by a dependable early generation test. Such a preliminary test of the ability of seedlings to survive subzero temperatures was evaluated and improved upon. The finalized version was then used to compare varieties in a duplicated greenhouse trial. The winter-survival of the same varieties have also been evaluated in field variety trials conducted independently by either this project or Ducks Unlimited. Finally, a selection experiment was done to further test the method. Only the first greenhouse trial correlated well with the Ducks Unlimited field trial data (more dependable data set). The selection trial showed no selection response. It appears that the test could be very useful following further modification to make it more robust.