Dr Lachlan Lake1,2,3, Dr Julie Hayes2, Dr Raul Ortega Martinez4, Professor Jim Weller4, Dr Muhammad Javid6, Dr Jakob Butler4, Laura James4, Dr Raul Giminez1,4, Dr. Fernanda Dreccer5, Dr Bob French6, Prof. Victor Sadras1,2,3
1SARDI, Urrbrae, Australia, 2Adelaide University, Urrbrae, Australia, 3Flinders University, Australia, 4University of Tasmania, Australia, 5CSIRO, Australia, 6DPIRD, Australia
Biography:
Dr Lachlan Lake is a crop ecophysiologist at the South Australian Research and Development Institute, an associate professor at Flinders University and an affiliate lecturer at the University of Adelaide. His research interests and experience include crop modelling, capture and efficiency in the use of water and nutrients in dryland systems, adaptation of pulses to abiotic stresses and the dynamics of N fixation.
Abstract:
This presentation focuses on associations between lentil phenology and yield in the northern, western, and southern regions of Australia. Using a historic collection of Australian varieties released between 1988 and 2019, we show that genetic gain in yield (29 kg ha-1 yr-1) associates with faster reproductive development leading to earlier flowering and podding. This faster reproductive development was associated with higher yield in 9 of 11 field trials with no trade-off in the remaining two. A focus on five loci related to reproductive development, the lentil ELF3 ortholog Sn, two loci linked to clusters of lentil FT orthologs and two loci without proposed candidates in chromosomes 2 and 5, revealed the potential for introducing novel early flowering alleles into current breeding material for further phenological diversity with potential implications for yield.