Morphological, physiological and molecular characterization of durum wheat (Triticum durum L.) genotypes under organic, low fertilizer input and conventional conditions

This research was conducted for two years in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 wheat growing season at Dicle University Faculty of Agriculture Research and Application Field (organic and conventional experiment areas) in Diyarbakir, Turkey. The goal of this study is to evaluate varieties and lines suitable for organic and low fertilizer input agriculture in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, as well as to identify gene expressions related to nitrogen use efficiency in varieties and lines suitable for various agricultural systems (organic, low fertilizer input and conventional). A total of 192 durum wheat genotypes were used in the first year of the study, including 125 local durum wheat genotypes collected from provinces in the Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia Region (Diyarbakir, Adiyaman, Elazig, Bingol, Sanliurfa, Mardin, Siirt, and Sirnak), 32 commercial varieties, and 35 advanced lines improved by Dicle University Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Field Crops. According to the first year's findings, 30 genotypes from three different growing conditions (organic, low fertilizer input and conventional) were employed in three different experiments using the Randomized Complete Blocks Design with four replications in the second year of the study. A statistical analysis revealed that genotypes were less affected by drought in organic and low fertilizer input circumstances than in conventional environments, particularly in terms of yield.The levels of gene expression of Genotypes for NUE varied depending on the farming system used.. In the study, the AMT2.1 gene levels of the genotypes grown under low fertilizer input conditions were found to be higher compared to organic conditions, but lower than conventional conditions. On the other hand, genotypes grown under low fertilizer input conditions had higher NPF6.3 expression values compared to the other two conditions. In addition, the expression levels of the TaNRT2.1 gene of the genotypes were higher in all three agricultural systems compared to the other examined genes. As a result of the evaluation of the characteristics obtained for two years, it has been determined that SYM-1, AYM-3 and MYM-8 genotypes are suitable for organic farming system, YM-16, DYM-6 and Sena genotypes for low fertilizer input farming system, AYM-6, UYM-2 and DYM27 for the conventional farming system .