Yield formation of Central-European winter wheat cultivars on a large scale perspective

For all parameters of yield formation besides light use efficiency (P = 0.073) statistically significant differences regarding the cultivars can be observed. Our results suggest that grain yield of modern German cultivars can be explained to a similar extent by differences in harvest indices (adj. r2: 0.77) and total biomass accumulation (adj. r2: 0.61). Variation in biomass accumulation partly can be explained by light use efficiency differences and to a lesser extent by differences in radiation interception. Most of the differences in biomass accumulation result, however, from differences in the accumulation of biomass from mid flowering to the final yield which for methodological reasons could not be further dissected to effects of light use efficiency and radiation interception. This information gap was described by the introduced parameter late performance. Various combinations of high and low performance, regarding the parameters of yield formation, exist in the analyzed set of cultivars.