Late embryogenesis-abundant (LEA) genes play important roles in plant growth and development, especially the cellular dehydration tolerance during seed maturation. In order to comprehensively understand the roles of LEA family members in wheat, we carried out a series of analyses based on the latest genome sequence of the bread wheat Chinese Spring. 121 Triticum aestivum L. LEA (TaLEA) genes, classified as 8 groups, were identified and characterized. TaLEA genes are distributed in all chromosomes, most of them with a low number of introns (≤3). Expression profiles showed that most TaLEA genes expressed specifically in grains. By qRT-PCR analysis, we confirmed that 12 genes among them showed high expression levels during late stage grain maturation in two spring wheat cultivars, Yangmai16 and Yangmai15. For most genes, the peak of expression appeared earlier in Yangmai16. Statistical analysis indicated that expression level of 8 genes in Yangmai 16 were significantly higher than Yangmai 15 at 25 days after anthesis. Taken together, our results provide more knowledge for future functional analysis and potential utilization of TaLEA genes in wheat breeding.

Weak-gluten wheat is the main raw material for crisp and soft foods such as cookies, cakes, and steamed breads in China. However, it remains challenging to find an appropriate fertilization regime to balance the yield and quality of wheat for special uses (such as cookie making). Here, four nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatments were compared in terms of effects on the yield-, grain-, flour-, and dough-related traits and cookie quality of nine weak-gluten wheat varieties. Compared with other treatments, the treatment M (which had 180 kg ha⁻¹ N fertilizers with basal fertilizer:tillering fertilizer:jointing fertilizer = 5:1:4) was a superior fertilization strategy as it could ensure a higher yield (4.46 kg block⁻¹) and proper traits related to cookie quality. Moreover, environmental conditions and wheat genotypes exhibited significant effects on many quality-related traits. The quality of Chinese crisp biscuits showed a significant association with unit weight, redness, and solvent retention capacity in lactic acid solution, while that of American cookies was influenced by thousand-grain weight, hardness, rate of yield flour, and formation time as indicated by the Mantel test. Additional Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated that thousand-grain weight, hardness, and rate of yield flour can affect the quality of American cookies. Our findings demonstrate that it is necessary to comprehensively consider local conditions, variety selection, and optimal fertilization to achieve high-quality weak-gluten wheat for cookie making.

In the lower and middle sections of the Yangtze River Basin Region (YRBR) in China, challenges posed by climate change and delayed harvesting of preceding crops have hindered the timely sowing of wheat, leading to an increasing prevalence of late-sown wheat fields. This trend has emerged as a significant impediment to achieving high and stable production of wheat in this area. During the growing seasons of 2022–2023 and 2023–2024, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based multispectral camera was used to monitor different wheat materials at various growth stages under normal sowing treatment (M1) and late sowing with increased plant density (M2). By assessing yield loss, the wheat tolerance to late sowing was quantified and categorized. The correlation between the differential vegetation indices (D-VIs) and late sowing resistance was examined. The findings revealed that the J2-Logistic model demonstrated optimal classification performance. The precision values of stable type, intermediate type, and sensitive type were 0.92, 0.61, and 1.00, respectively. The recall values were 0.61, 0.92, and 1.00. The mean average precision (mAP) of the model was 0.92. This study proposes a high-throughput and low-cost evaluation method for wheat tolerance to late sowing, which can provide a rapid predictive tool for screening suitable varieties for late sowing and facilitating late-sown wheat breeding.

Climate change and cropping-system adjustments have caused widespread delayed sowing, limiting wheat growth and yield. Although optimized nitrogen management can partially mitigate late-sowing stress, the optimal nitrogen rate and basal–topdressing ratio for late-sown high-quality wheat remain undefined, limiting the development of targeted cultivation strategies. To solve the above scientific problems and clarify the regulatory effects of nitrogen fertilizer application regimes on the yield and quality of late-sown wheat, a two-year fixed-field experiment was carried out in this study. The late-sowing-tolerant wheat cultivar Yangmai 25 was used as the material. With a sowing date of 25 November (delayed by 20 days compared to the optimal sowing period), a split-plot field experiment was carried out with two factors: nitrogen application rate (225 and 300 kg N·ha⁻¹) assigned to the main plots, and basal–topdressing ratio among the basal-, tillering-, and jointing-stage fertilizer applications (7:1:2, 5:1:4, and 3:3:4) arranged in the sub-plots. The results showed that both the nitrogen application rate and basal–topdressing ratio comparison had highly significant effects on the grain yield of Yangmai 25. Under the same basal–topdressing ratio, increasing the nitrogen application rate from 225 to 300 kg·ha⁻¹ improved the spike number and grains per spike, but reduced the 1000-grain weight and grain yield. Under the same nitrogen application rate, increasing the topdressing proportion improved the grain number per spike, 1000-grain weight, and yield, while the spike number decreased. Specifically, the 3:3:4 management strategy resulted in an average yield increase of 3.11% and 8.94% over two years compared to the 5:1:4 and 7:1:2 strategies, respectively. Both the nitrogen application rate and basal–topdressing ratio had highly significant effects on quality indicators, such as protein content, wet gluten content, sedimentation value, dough formation time, sodium carbonate solvent retention capacity (SRC), sucrose SRC, and other quality indicators, but had minimal impact on grain hardness, water absorption, and water SRC. Under the same nitrogen application rate, the basal–topdressing ratio of 3:3:4 significantly increased grain protein content, wet gluten content, sedimentation value, dough development time, and dough stability time compared to the 7:1:2 treatment. In addition, under the experimental conditions of this study, the 225 kg·ha⁻¹ nitrogen application rate combined with the 3:3:4 basal–topdressing ratio achieved better comprehensive performance in the yield and quality of Yangmai 25 compared with that of the 300 kg·ha⁻¹ treatment. Further experiments are required to determine the optimal nitrogen application rate for this cultivar under late-sowing conditions.