International Journal of Plant and Animal Sciences

ISSN 2756-388X

International Journal of Plant and Animal Sciences ISSN 2167-0366 Vol. 8 (3), pp. 001-004, March, 2020. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

A dwarf wheat mutant is associated with increased drought resistance and altered responses to gravity

Xiuhai Zhang*, Xuqing Chen, Zhongyi Wu, Xiaodong Zhang, Conglin Huang, Mingqing Cao

Beijing Agriculture Biotechnology Research Center, Beijing 100089, China.

Accepted 18 August, 2019

Abstract

Drought resistance is an important trait for crops. Here we report a new wheat mutant with increased drought resistance and altered gravitropism. During the bombardment transformation of Chinese wheat cultivar ‘Jingdong 6’, a recessive remarkably dwarf wheat mutant named ‘s-dwarf’ (super dwarf wheat) was created. It was severely dwarf and gibberellic acid insensitive. The relative water loss ratio of the detached leaf and the transpiration rate of s-dwarf seedlings were remarkably lower than Jingdong 6 while the photosynthetic rate of s-dwarf seedlings was significantly higher than Jingdong 6. Most of the s-dwarf seedlings survived in recovering experiement after water loss. The stalk of s-dwarf seedling also showed reduced gravitropism. This is the first report about a new dwarf wheat mutant associated with increased drought resistance and altered stalk gravitropism.

Key words: s-Dwarf, wheat, increased drought resistance, gravitropism, relative water loss ratio, transpiration rate, photosynthetic rate.