Linking plasticity of abiotic stress responses to yield stability in faba bean

Faba bean (Vicia faba) is a cold-adapted legume with high nitrogen fixation rates and a protein content favorable for human and animal nutrition. Not only providing nitrogen for subsequent crops, but also phytosanitary aspects and its high weed suppression ability make faba bean an advantageous crop especially in cereal-heavy rotations. However, its yield is severely affected by abiotic stresses, such as drought. In the field, drought stress rarely occurs isolated, but usually in combination with heat stress. Therefore, my project aims to better understand the plasticity of diverse faba bean accessions under combined heat and drought stress.
Detailed phenotyping of root and shoot traits of drought-tolerant faba bean landraces and wild genotypes under isolated and combined abiotic stresses will be carried out. As a first step, yield and physiological traits of the faba bean genotypes will be investigated under combined heat and drought stress as well as different combinations of stress intensities to develop a stress-stress response matrix. The focus will be on flowering and yield parameters, as well as stress parameters, such as leaf chlorophyll fluorescence and gas exchange, measured with the LI-COR Li-600-PF. In addition, shoot and physiological stress traits of the faba bean genotypes will be analyzed in the Drought Spotter XS, a semi-automated container phenotyping system, in combination with the PhenoSpex PlantEye, a multispectral 3D scanner. To phenotype the root system architecture of faba beans under abiotic stress, the plants will be grown in rhizotrones and scanned with the PhenoAIxpert pro root. Furthermore, samples will be collected for RNAseq to identify regions of important QTLs and/or candidate genes and the transcriptomics associated with abiotic stress tolerance and yield stability in faba bean.