Unlocking Stability in Triticale: New Methods for Drought Stress

Scientists have been busy making a new super crop called triticale. It's a mix of wheat and rye. The goal? To have a crop that can handle tough conditions, like drought. The study looked at 30 different types of this super crop in Iran from 2016 to 2020. They checked how well these plants handled different water levels and environments. They grew the plants in patterns and counted the grains to see which did best. They used old methods to measure this, plus two new ones they named SID and APCV. These new methods helped them find the most stable types of triticale. The top five were ELTTCL21, ELTTCL25, ELTTCL30, ET-90-8, and Sanabad. They did great in both wet and dry conditions. For very dry conditions, ELTTCL30 and ELTTCL18 were stars. In normal conditions, ET-90-4 and ELTTCL20 shone. A special technique called heatmap was used to look at all the data in a new way, which helped find the best plants even better. The new methods seemed to work great, giving hope for more stable crops in the future.