Performance of Hybrid Wheat in the Great Plains.

Hybrid wheat has the potential to boost yields and enhance yield stability under fluctuating climate conditions. We tested 650 hybrid wheat cultivars in 2016 and 2017 in a modified augmented design for yield and other traits in Nebraska at Lincoln, North Platte, and Alliance. Additional trials were also located in Texas. The Nebraska locations broadly capture the diverse growing regions of the central Great Plains and were intensively managed with fungicides and herbicides for optimal estimations of heterosis and combining abilities. Hybrid yields were calculated as best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) after accounting for field variation with experimental design and spatial modeling. In 2016 the best models were obtained using the incomplete blocking structure of the trials, whereas in 2017 incomplete blocking with row and column corrections performed best for Lincoln and Alliance while autoregressive smoothing in both rows and columns for North Platte exhibited best fit. Yields and rankings of the hybrids varied across environments; estimation of heterosis and quantitative genetic parameters are underway. This work will drive selection of hybrid wheat parents in future work and inform field design and statistical modeling practices as well as build training datasets for use of genomic selection in breeding for hybrid wheat.