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Episode transcription:
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Drew Lyon: Hello, welcome to the WSU Wheat Beat podcast. I’m your host, Drew Lyon, and I want to thank you for joining me as we explore the world of small grains production and research at Washington State University. In each episode, I speak with researchers from WSU and the USDA-ARS to provide you with insights into the latest research on wheat and barley production.
If you enjoy the WSU Wheat Beat podcast, do us a favor and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and leave us a review so others can find the show too.
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My guest today is Adele Jamalzei. Adele is a Ph.D. student in plant breeding and genetics at Washington State University. She earned her master’s degree in plant breeding and genetics from GAU in Iran in collaboration with the IPK Institute in Germany, where she focused on identifying genes related to yield traits in wheat. Currently, Adele is working with Dr. Arron Carter in the [WSU] Winter Wheat Breeding Program, specifically on enhancing wheat yield through strategic gene pyramiding and researching the phenological dynamics of winter wheat, including the analysis of winter dormancy and spring growth patterns.
Drew Lyon: Hello, Adele.
Adele Jamalzei: Hello, Drew. Thanks for having me.
Drew Lyon: Welcome to the show. I wonder if you can tell us why you started this research project on winter wheat phenological dynamics? And what inspired you to focus on this area?
Adele Jamalzei: Actually, as we all know, winter wheat is a very important crop in [the] Pacific Northwest and it provides us essential food and economic benefits. However, you know, winter wheat encounters two major challenges.
The first one is surviving the cold and harsh winter that we have here and also growing once the spring arrives. So, to survive winter, the crop shows vegetative dormancy–as we all know, [that] is a period of inactivity that [is observed] in various genotypes at different times and rates. So, our group–the winter wheat group–we noticed that varieties that have strong cold tolerance, they show delayed growth in spring. That’s not good because it actually decreased the yield. And we don’t want [a] decrease in yield. So, this delay [results] in suboptimal utilization of GDD or growing degree days.
As we all, I think, know that GDD is a measure of heat accumulation used to predict plant development stages. So, if the GDD is going to be low, it stops proper development of the wheat and also establishment of the plant.
So, we establish a term here that is not in the literature before. The period I am talking about, the vegetative dormancy–as we all know, the period from the end of vegetative dormancy to canopy closure is very important and we defined it as spring growth period. So, as I told you, it’s not established in the literature. So, by studying the specific periods of winter dormancy and spring growth, we aim to identify which trait or which [varieties] have the cold tolerance and also have very on-time spring growth.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, yeah, you’re trying to find things that maybe are a little bit opposed to each other, right? Because winter dormancy is important to surviving the winter and yet you want it to come out of that quickly rather than just around and just come out slowly.
Adele Jamalzei: Exactly, quickly and on time. If it’s going to be faster, then it’s not good. And if it’s going to be slower, then it’s not good either. So, we need an optimal time for that spring growth.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, what have you discovered about the relationship between cold tolerance and spring growth in winter wheat and why is that important for farmers?
Adele Jamalzei: As I told you, we found that the varieties with strong cold tolerance, as we all know, can survive harsh winter. But there is a catch, as we know. The hardy winters often take longer to start growing again when the spring arrives and this delay means that they miss out [on] the best growing conditions leading to lower yields. On the other hand, varieties that start growing quickly in spring would not be [as] good at surviving extreme winter cold. For farmers, this means that just picking the most cold tolerant variety might not always be the best strategy if it grows too slowly in spring.
So, we understand that the length of growth period in spring after dormancy is very crucial [and] that it determines how much solar radiation [the crop can] absorb and impacting biomass production and definitely impact yields. So, it’s important for farmers to choose varieties that strike a balance. It means that they don’t need to be very tough to survive winter, but also they have to be quick to grow when the weather warms up.
So, we worked on this with 480 varieties and we specified the varieties that have cold tolerance and we specified those who have spring growth and optimal spring growth as well.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, how do you determine that and how might imaging techniques like RGB cameras, NDVI cameras in your research–how do you use those to reveal those varieties that have the cold tolerance but also then begin to grow in a timely manner?
Adele Jamalzei: As we all know, scoring plants’ growth visually in the field is very laborious and expensive, and also, it is biased. So, each plant breeder can go and score differently. But also, we need daily updates on crop development patterns that are so important for our understanding the process of plant growth.
So, we use the RGB–the visible light–and NDVI and near-infrared imaging to monitor the growth and health of wheat plants. RGB imaging actually helps us to [determine] the visible growth and canopy cover, while NDVI helps us to understand the health of the plants.
So, RGB, as I told you, it stands for red, green, and blue, which are the colors that normal cameras also can capture. We take like regular photos of the wheat field to see how the plants are growing and how dense the canopy cover is and [it helps us] track how much the plants are spreading out and filling the field. And NDVI, it stands for normalized difference vegetation index and it uses the near-infrared, which plants reflect differently than visible light. So, the healthy plants and the healthy wheat reflect more near-infrared, which, the weaker plants and the weaker wheat reflect less near-infrared. So, we can understand which plants are healthier and which [ones] are not.
So, what we did actually with the pictures that we took, we did some analysis, like date to full canopy closure and date to full NDVI. We calculated how many days for each plant it takes to have the maximum canopy closure and also how many days does it take for them to have the maximum NDVI. Then we make the growth patterns for each variety. And by the growth pattern, we could see which [varieties] break the dormancy earlier than the others and which [varieties] can have the optimal spring growth.
So, now we have the data of the cold tolerance because we actually examined every variety–the cold tolerance of every variety in [a] freeze chamber. And then we have the spring growth data with date to full canopy closure and date to full NDVI, and now we can understand which [varieties] have the optimal spring growth while it has the cold tolerance before.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, I guess, I’m wondering how do you weight those things differently? In other words, cold tolerance and spring growth–say one has really great cold tolerance, but it doesn’t have very good spring growth or it has very good spring growth but not great cold tolerance. How do you weigh those to make sure–how do you find the optimum, I guess is what [I mean]?
Adele Jamalzei: The cold tolerance is the index that we could say like this–and also we did the experiment in the freeze chamber. After we did the experiment, we know that these varieties have cold tolerance and then we separate those. Like, these are cold [tolerant] and now we’re going to check by the analysis that we did–now we’re going to check which one has the good spring growth. And then we can say to farmers that these varieties have the cold tolerance as we know and as we did the experiments in the freeze chamber, and then these have the optimal growth or spring growth as well.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, what is the main goal of the study? I think I kind of have it, but how do you hope to use these findings to benefit wheat growers in the Pacific Northwest?
Adele Jamalzei: The primary goal of our study was to explore the relationship between the cold tolerance and winter dormancy and the rate of spring growth, and ultimately, the effect that it has on grain yield. And also, as I told you, to find the best winter wheat variety that can handle the tough winter that we have here in this region and also [has] the optimal spring growth.
And, how this helps farmers is that they can maximize the yield. And by choosing the right varieties, [farmers] can increase their wheat yield leading to more successful harvest, definitely, and it actually reduce replanting. Hardier varieties reduce the chances of winter kill and [saves] farmers time and money by avoiding the need to replant in spring. And also, they help them to [make informed decisions]–research [provides] clear information on which trait to look for and help farmers select the best variety for their specific condition that they’re planting right now.
Drew Lyon: So, are you finding–I think you said 480 samples?
Adele Jamalzei: 480 samples. Yes.
Drew Lyon: Are you finding quite a difference amongst varieties? Are you finding some that are meeting your criteria of good cold tolerance?
Adele Jamalzei: Yeah, the research is still going on. We had planted them in two locations. I did the analysis and I think it’s going to be done in a couple of months and we’re going to publish it. Yeah. We found a relationship and then we found that, as I told you, we calculate the date of full canopy closure and date of full NDVI and by the growth patterns, we calculated an index—the name is AUC or area under curve. So, we calculated that and then we calculate the speed growth for each sample, for each variety–which one has this, you know, a faster speed growth, which one has the slower speed growth. And then we had some correlation between the traits.
And also, we calculated or we recorded different traits like yield, like tiller number, like, you know, different types of agronomical traits. And then, we calculated the correlation between the trait as well. So, we found that faster canopy cover development shows a positive correlation with yield. Those who have developed faster in canopy closure show us more yield.
And also, cold tolerance has a very weak correlation with yield. I mean, it’s suggesting it’s not a primary yield driver, as I told you. But everybody thought that for Pacific Northwest cold tolerance [varieties] are good, but it doesn’t show us a very good correlation with yield. So, we were thinking the idea behind the whole article is that, “Okay. When it doesn’t have good correlation with yield, what’s the other factor?” That factor is spring growth that we explained–and we actually established that term. And also other correlation–we found that there’s no significant correlation between yield and date to full NDVI, but the date to full canopy closure for each variety that we, you know, calculated [has a] very good correlation with yield.
And also, we calculated or we recorded some weather data as well and we are working on GDD for each sample.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, you’re confident you’re going to find some good varieties that have adequate cold tolerance and good spring growth?
Adele Jamalzei: Yeah, sure.
Drew Lyon: Very good. You know, as a weed scientist, that’s also important because of competition from weeds early on. So those winter annuals, if you can get the canopy closure more quickly, your weed issues aren’t as bad either.
Adele Jamalzei: Oh, that’s great.
Drew Lyon: It could be very good from that standpoint as well as just overall yield is it should be more competitive with those early emerging weeds. So, very interesting work. I assume it’s still got a year or two to go, but if our listeners are wanting to learn a little bit more about your work, is there some place they go to find that? [Does] Dr. Carter have a website they can go to and visit and see some of his research?
Adele Jamalzei: Yeah, sure. You can look up the Winter Wheat Breeding Program in WSU, and you can read about our research and also I’m going to publish it maybe in a couple of months, and then you can, definitely read that publication as well.
Drew Lyon: Okay. We’ll get that web address into our show notes so readers can find it if they want to.
Adele, thank you very much for your time. Very interesting work. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the results in a year or two.
Adele Jamalzei: Thank you so much for having me here.
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Thanks for joining us and listening to the WSU Wheat Beat podcast. If you like what you hear don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you have questions or topics you’d like to hear on future episodes, please email me at drew.lyon — that’s lyon@wsu.edu — (drew.lyon@wsu.edu). You can find us online at smallgrains.wsu.edu and on Facebook and Twitter [X] @WSUSmallGrains. The WSU Wheat Beat podcast is a production of CAHNRS Communications and the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.
I’m Drew Lyon, we’ll see you next time.
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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and does not imply Washington State University’s endorsement.