GENETIC VARIABILITY OF SPRING COMMON WHEAT VARIETIES IN ALUMINUM TOLERANCE

Spring common wheat varieties display broad genotypic diversity in response to the stress impact of aluminum ions. The investigated set of varieties contained no sensitive ones. Moderately tolerant varieties constituted about 63 %, and highly tolerant, about 25,5 %. The remaining 11,5 % of varieties were moderately sensitive to aluminum treatment. Accessions of spring common wheat have different levels of aluminum tolerance irrespective of sampling locality. The set of wheat varieties showed a significant genetic diversity in the manifestation of the response of chloroplast pigments to the stressor. The structure-functional rearrangement of the leaf pigment apparatus was variety-specific. It showed no strong relation to the level of aluminum tolerance in the root systems. Cluster analysis divided the entire set of varieties into 5 groups with different combinations of root length and plant vigor both in the control and in the presence of aluminum. The authors suggest that the increase in aluminum tolerance in spring common wheat varieties occurs indirectly alongside the breeding aimed at increasing plant resistance to abiotic environmental factors