Screening of mycorrhiza dependency of wheat and its relatives for nutrition and yield

2-years study was conducted to screen of mycorrhiza dependency (MD) of wheat and its relatives under greenhouse conditions. In the first year, a pot experiment was carried out using 21 diploid, 29 tetraploid and 7 hexaploid wheat varieties, including wild and primitive accessions, to test the mycorrhizal dependence (MD). Plants were inoculated with Glomus mossea (M) and nonmycorrhizae (NM) for 71 days. Root dry weight (wt), shoot dry wt, total dry wt, growth response, root infection and MD were calculated for each genotype. Of these measurements tested, on average, with mycorrhizae inoculation increased by 3.97 fold for root dry weight, 5.23 fold for shoot dry wt and 4.77 fold for total dry wt, compared to control. MD indicated a high variation at each ploidy levels, which ranged from 91.1 to 70.4% for diploid, from 90.5 to 56.8% for tetraploid and from 79.5 to 70.9% for hexaploid wheats, and diploid accessions observed more higher than tetraploid and hexaploid wheats. Also, growth response was observed like to MD, which found to decline in the order diploid > tetraploid > hexaploid wheats, while root infection was found lower among and within species. As a result of the first year, 20 genotypes (11 species) were selected according to MD to use in the second year. In the second year, all the plants were harvested at physiological maturity stage. It was examined all of the same characters of the first year. Also, it was examined yield and its components and plant nutrition elements. It was found high variation intra and inter-species for examined characters. Of these measurements tested, with mycorrhiza inoculation increased root, shoot and total dry wt, spike number per plant, plant height, spike length, number of spikelet per spike and number of grain per spike, compared to control, while it decreased heading time, and remained unchanged grain yield of spike and thousand grain wt. The P and Zn concentration of the grains produced by the inoculated plants was increased, while the concentration of K, Mg, Fe, Mn and Cu was either decreased (Mn, Cu) or remained unchanged (K, Mg, Fe). Mycorrhizal dependence indicated a high variation at each ploidy levels, which ranged from 50.0 to 11.5% for diploid, from 35.4 to -0.10 % for tetraploid and from 21.2 to 13.4% for hexaploid wheats, and diploid accessions observed more higher than tetraploid and hexaploid wheats. Results of this studies showed that S(B) genome indicated highly to mycorrhizal dependence, AA and BBAA genomes both dependent and non-dependent, whereas BBAADD genome the lowest dependence. Thus, wild and primitive accessions can be used as gene source to improve new cultivar wheats in plant breeding programme. Key words: Triticum, Aegilops, Genome, Mycorrhizal Dependence, Arbuscular Mycorrhizae