Background and aims Weeds are a major biotic stressor impacting crop production. Improving the competitiveness of wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) could provide a useful tool in integrated weed management. While wheat typically exhibits conservative early growth, early vigour has been increased through long-term recurrent selection for greater early biomass and leaf area. However, the influence of integrating such vigour into bre...

Key message Characterisation and genetic mapping of a key gene defining root morphology in bread wheat. Abstract Root morphology is central to plants for the efficient uptake up of soil water and mineral nutrients. Here we describe a conditional mutant of hexaploid wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) that when grown in soil with high Ca 2+ develops a larger rhizosheath accompanied with shorter roots than the wild type. In wheat, rhi...

Purpose Durum wheat is sensitive of acid soils because it lacks effective genes for Al 3+ tolerance. Previous research showed introgression of the TaMATE1B and TaALMT1 genes individually increased the Al 3+ tolerance of durum wheat. Here we aimed to (a) combine the genes into a single durum line, (b) compare the various introgression lines and (c) establish the effectiveness of the introgressions in improving the acid soil tol...