Mission
The PhD student will be responsible for characterising the phenotypic plasticity of pre- and post-flowering processes within a panel of over 450 soft wheats of worldwide diversity. On this basis, he/she will identify the most effective yield development strategies under different types of environmental scenarios. Finally, he/she will develop new original genomic prediction models for yield, based on detailed environmental characterisation and taking advantage of the knowledge acquired on the plasticity of yield components.
Phenotypic plasticity will be estimated using a network of over 30 trials, mainly in France, for which data is already available. The plasticity of pre-flowering processes will be evaluated in particular for tillering, and the plasticity of post-flowering processes will be evaluated for stay-green.
Detailed envirotyping work will be carried out on the experimental network, using environmental data collected in each trial and ecophysiological modelling work carried out in collaboration with the University of Queensland using the APSIM crop model (Chenu et al. 2013). This work will lead to the definition of ideotypes for the plasticity of yield components in different types of environment (Chenu et al. 2011).
New genomic prediction models will be developed to improve the prediction of individual performance in known or new environments through the use of environmental covariates (Tolhurst et al. 2022; Piepho and Blancon 2023). The knowledge acquired on the plasticity of yield components will be exploited in the new models proposed using different approaches.
