ABSTRACT
Although progress has been made to improve wheat yield and WUE in last few decades in the U.S. SGP, the current WUE level is still low (1.2 kg m−3) as compared to other winter wheat production areas such as NCP (about 2.0 kg m−3). Therefore, developing better management strategies to improve yield and WUE is still a challenge for agricultural scientists, particularly under changing climate scenario. For dryland wheat production in the SGP, management practices (e.g. no-till, residue mulching and rotation) have resulted in significant gain in soil water storage during fallow periods over the last four to five decades. Future research must address how to efficiently use soil water. Since drought stress is inevitable during wheat growing season, improving drought tolerance through breeding will be an increasingly important part of overall crop improvement. A better understanding of crop response to drought stress and identification of plant traits will lead to development of improved germplasm and cultivars in the region. Over the years, there have been some progresses for better understanding drought tolerance and WUE in winter wheat under drought in the SGP. However, further studies are still needed to identify more traits related to improved drought tolerance and WUE. Currently, the major challenge is high-throughput field phenotyping as more and more genotypes are readily available by genotyping and genomic technologies.
