Agronomic Traits and Photosynthetic Characteristics of Chlorophyll-Deficient Wheat Mutant Induced by Spaceflight Environment

Chlorophyll deficient mutants are ideal materials to study photosynthetic mechanism, pathways of chlorophyll biosynthesis and degradation, and the genes related to photosynthesis. A chlorophyll-deficient mutant of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), Mt135, was obtained by space mutagenesis. The main agronomic traits and photosynthetic characteristics of this mutant were compared with its wild type in field experiment. The leaf color of Mt135 showed albino, striped, and green phenotypes. The albino plants with entire albino leaves died at seedling stage. The plants with green-and-white striped leaves usually matured 5–7 d later than the wild type, and had lower plant height, shorter spike length, fewer grain number, and smaller grain weight per plant and 1000-grain weight. In contrast, the green plants of the mutant had similar agronomic traits to the wild type. Preliminary genetic analysis showed that the inheritance of leaf color in Mt135 was controlled by nucleocytoplasmic interaction. When exposed to photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) at 110 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹, the green tissue of striped plant (S-G) had a similar value of maximum photosystem II quantum yield to the wide plant, but a significantly lower potential activity of photosystem II; the photochemical quenching, nonphotochemical quenching, effective quantum yield, regulated nonphotochemical energy dissipation, and nonregulated energy dissipation varied differently at seeding, elongation, and heading stages. In addition, for electron transport rate, photochemical quenching, and effective quantum yield, the differences between S-G plant and the wild plant varied under different PAR conditions. Nevertheless, the other 2 types of the mutant, white tissue of striped plant and albino plant, showed complete losses of photosynthetic function. As a result, the photosynthesis of Mt135 was greatly restricted. High photosynthetic active radiation had tremendous impact on the mutant at elongation stage and relatively weak impact at heading stage. The changes of photosynthetic function of striped plants are in accordance with the reduction of their plant height, spike length, and yield related traits.