Climate, Weather, and Ecology in Evaluation of High Latitude Spring Wheat Breeding Sites and Germplasm

The Ural Mountains in the Western Siberia region cultivate over 3.5 M ha of short season spring wheat, with an average grain yield of 1.6-2.0 t/ha. The study focus was the analysis of climate change and weather effects on spring wheat yields from 2001 to 2024 and on genotype-environment interactions in the Kazakhstan-Siberia Spring Wheat Improvement network (KASIB) trials from 2019 to 2024. Climate change has the tendency to gradually reduce precipitation and increase air temperatures, which negatively affect spring wheat yields. Based on regional yield and weather, the region was divided into subregions: Tyumen in the North with a high yield; Chelyabinsk with lower precipitation and a lower grain yield; and Omsk and Kurgan were similar in most years. Environments at the four breeding programs (Chelyabinsk Agricultural Research Institute, Kurgan Seeds, and Omsk and Tyumen State Agrarian Universities) did not fully reflect the target production areas due to a very high yield gap and lack of association between the research and production yields. Genotype-environment interaction analysis showed that the Tyumen site had the highest yield and best discriminating ability, while Chelyabinsk best represented the whole target region. Most of the highest yielding material in KASIB trials originated from outside of the region. Spring wheat breeding programs in the region ought to improve to maintain a competitive edge.