Chlorophyll Fluorescence in Wheat Breeding for Heat and Drought Tolerance

Abstract

The constantly growing need to increase the production of agricultural products in changing climatic conditions makes it necessary to accelerate the development of new cultivars that meet the modern demands of agronomists. Currently, the breeding process includes the stages of genotyping and phenotyping to optimize the selection of promising genotypes. One of the most popular phenotypic methods is the pulse-amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometry, due to its non-invasiveness and high information content. In this review, we focused on the opportunities of using chlorophyll fluorescence (ChlF) parameters recorded using PAM fluorometry to assess the state of plants in drought and heat stress conditions and predict the economically significant traits of wheat, as one of the most important agricultural crops, and also analyzed the relationship between the ChlF parameters and genetic markers.

Keywords

• breeding
• chlorophyll fluorescence
• PAM fluorometry
• crop yield
• stress tolerance
• drought