Breeding and Cereal Yield Progress

By R. A. Fischer, G. Edmeades. 2010

657 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reviews recent progress in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), and maize (Zea mays L.) yields resulting from substantial breeding efforts in mostly favorable environments and examines its physiological basis. Breeding and improved agronomy lift potential yield (PY), namely yield with the best variety and management in the absence of manageable abiotic and biotic stresses, and PY increase is a key component of progress in farm yield (FY), the other component being closure of the PY to FY gap. Changes in PY and FY are reviewed for several key production regions, namely the United Kingdom and the Yaqui Valley of Mexico for wheat, Japan and Central Luzon in the Philippines for rice, and Iowa and briefl y sub-Saharan Africa for maize. The PY growth rates have fallen and are currently generally no more than 1% per annum and usually much less. The trajectory of FY with time often closely parallels PY, but, especially in developing countries, there remain large yield gaps. In at least one instance (maize in Iowa) the gap between PY and FY appears to be closing rapidly. Current genetic progress is linked to increased biomass accumulation, and this will remain the way forward in the future given the limits to increased harvest index (HI). There is evidence that recent progress is related to increased photosynthesis (e.g., greater radiation use effi ciency (RUE) at the canopy level and/or maximum photosynthetic rate P max at saturating irradiance at the leaf level) before and around anthesis. There is no theoretical reason why this trend cannot continue, especially given the vast genetic resources already found within each crop species. However, it will not be easily or cheaply accomplished, so prospects for higher rates of potential yield growth appear to be limited, notwithstanding new molecular tools and claims to the contrary. Closing the yield gap, therefore, becomes more important. Many factors are involved, but breeding can also help farmers achieve this through, for example, improved host plant resistance.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/16cdc4bc231fff095cf20877da52a89a6effff54

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Citations in the corpus

Breeding high-yield superior quality hybrid super rice by rational design (2016, neutral): “9 36% more than Nipponbare, a landmark cultivar released in 1963 [41, 42].”
The Realized Yield Effect of Genetically Engineered Crops: U.S. Maize and Soybean (2013, neutral): “As in the past, such productivity improvements will need to rely on sustained contributions from research and innovation (Fischer and Edmeades, 2010).”
Yield gap analysis—Rationale, methods and applications—Introduction to the Special Issue (2013, background): “…yield potential, or in water-limited yield is at the very least challenging, because the room to further increase the harvest index is small (Fischer and Edmeades, 2010), and prospects for significant breakthroughs in genetic improvement of photosynthesis or drought tolerance remain elusive…”
Maximum Attainable Wheat Yield and Resource‐Use Efficiency in the Southern Great Plains (2015, background): “2870 www.crops.org crop science, vol. 55, november–december 2015 provides empirical evidence for winter wheat grain yields of 7.68 Mg ha–1 when grown under nonlimiting conditions in the southern Great Plains, the yields reported here are well below the 12.9 Mg ha–1 theoretical potential (Sinclair, 2”
Potential of Underutilized Traditional Vegetables and Legume Crops to Contribute to Food and Nutritional Security, Income and More Sustainable Production Systems (2014, background): “especially in regions or countries with relatively low yields, and by closing the yield gap between potential and actual farm yield [1,9].”
Rhizosphere-associated bacterial network structure and spatial distribution differ significantly from bulk soil in wheat crop fields (2017, background): “Wheat (Triticumaestivum L.) is one of the main grain crops globally, but productivity increases per year have slowed to 0.9% (Fischer and Edmeades, 2010).”