Yield and yield formation of winter wheat in response to enhanced solar ultraviolet-B radiation

The stratospheric ozone decrease has heightened concern over the ecological implications of increasing solar UV-B radiation on agricultural production and natural plant ecosystems. UV-B is absorbed, and can damage many important plant species through a variety of interacting mechanisms. The effects of enhanced UV-B exposure on yield and yield formation of winter wheat associated with photosynthetic activity and total biomass development were investigated in this study. The overall experimental design was three UV-B treatments (two supplemental UV-B treatments and an ambient level) and three replicates of each treatment. The results suggested that the supplemental UV-B can cause the decrease of yield of winter wheat up to 24% with 11.4% increased UV-B. The key growing stage which cause the yield decrease is during the jointing-spike formation. This study also investigated the effects of supplemental U-VB on production of dry matter, allocation, LAI, total biomass, and photosynthetic activity of winter wheat. The combined UV-B effect with other environmental stress factors on wheat was discussed in this study.