Deeper roots associated with cooler canopies, higher normalized difference vegetation index, and greater yield in three wheat populations grown on stored soil water

Simple and repeatable methods are needed to select for deep roots under field conditions. A large-scale field experiment was conducted to assess the association between canopy temperature (CT) measured by airborne thermography and rooting depth determined by the core-break method. Three wheat populations, C306×Westonia (CW), Hartog×Drysdale (HD), and Sundor×Songlen (SS), were grown on stored soil water in NSW Australia in 2017 (n=196–252). Cool and warm CT extremes (‘tails’) were cored after harvest (13–32% of each population). Rooting depth was significantly correlated with CT at late flowering (r= –0.25, –0.52, and –0.23 for CW, HD, and SS, respectively, P<0.05 hereafter), with normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) at early grain filling (r=0.30–0.39), and with canopy height (r=0.23–0.48). The cool tails showed significantly deeper roots than the respective warm tails by 8.1 cm and 6.2 cm in CW and HD, and correspondingly, greater yields by an average 19% and 7%, respectively. This study highlighted that CT measured rapidly by airborne thermography or NDVI at early grain filling could be used to guide selection of lines with deeper roots to increase wheat yields. The remote measurement methods in this study were repeatable and high throughput, making them well suited to use in breeding programmes.