Wiesław Mądry’s research while affiliated with Warsaw University of Life Sciences and other places

High Nature Value farmlands in Europe are of greatest importance in the conservation of biodiversity. Their environmental importance has been recognized for some time, and has been studied mostly in Western Europe. This article describes the results of multivariate statistical analyses performed on data (13 variables) collected from the latest National Agricultural Census and the CORINE database to provide a typology of farmlands with respect to their nature value at municipality level (LAU 2, Local Administrative Units level 2) across Poland. All municipalities were grouped into eight categories (types). Some of the farmland categories were considered to be High Nature Value farmland (HNVf). The following interrelated variables mostly contributed to the identification of HNVf: share of protected areas and forest, grassland, arable land and fallow, farmland cover diversity, and rate of nitrogen fertilization. HNVf was identified in 958 out of 2173 municipalities, covering 44% of the territory of Poland. The identified HNVf also overlaps partially (61%) with LFAs (Less Favored Areas). Farmlands with the highest nature value are located mostly across mountain and hilly areas, close to forests, and protected areas on lowlands and river valleys. The identified HNV farmlands are characterized by low-input farming systems and a large share of semi-natural habitats with a high landscape mosaic.

The objectives of this study were to determine how modern cultivars of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L. var. vulgare) and different soil conditions at locations in Poland affected grain yield (GY) of 15 cultivars and multiplicative yield components. The different ways in which the components contributed to GY variation created by environmental conditions—location, growing season, and crop management—across environments of favorable and unfavorable soil suitability for wheat cultivation were also determined. To assess the relationship between GY and its components for cultivars grown under two levels of soil suitability, path coefficient analysis was used. Cluster analysis of three GY components—the number of spikes per square meter (SN), the number of grains per spike (NG/S), and the thousand‐grain weight (TGW)—derived from different cultivar × soil suitability combinations was performed to identify groups of these combinations and to assess the ways in which yield components vary in their contribution to GY in the varied environments. Grain yield and its three components were significantly affected by main and interaction effects of the cultivar and the level of soil suitability. Grain yield in favorable and unfavorable soil suitability conditions was, respectively, 6.58–5.44 Mg ha⁻¹. This decrease was due to a reduction in SN by 6.1% and in TGW by 11.8%, but NG/S was similar in both soil groups. Grain yield variability in response to the different environmental conditions was determined by similar contributions of the three yield components, almost independently of the cultivar, but in the favorable suitability, SN had a stronger impact on GY, whereas in unfavorable soil suitability for wheat cultivation, the importance of NG/S increased.

W pracy przedstawiono główne kierunki badań, ich chronologię oraz osiągnięcia w zakresie metod statystyki matematycznej w zastosowaniu do biometrii i doświadczalnictwa rolniczego, dokonywane od XVII wieku do czasów współczesnych. Uwzględniono dorobek uczonych na świecie oraz w Polsce. Podkreślono historyczne i współczesne znaczenie tych osiągnięć matematycznych i metodycznych dla rozwoju i postępu nauk empirycznych w ogóle, a zwłaszcza nauk rolniczych i biologicznych. Przedstawiono znaczenie zastosowania metod statystycznych w uznaniu empirycznych badań rolniczych, jako nauki rolnicze. Świadectwa i rozważania oraz autorskie osądy odkryć i wynalazków statystycznych na przestrzeni wieków i lat są udokumentowane i zilustrowane oryginalnymi publikacjami, a także realnymi dokonaniami pionierów statystyki, biometrii i doświadczalnictwa rolniczego oraz współczesnych uczonych w tych dziedzinach i specjalnościach.

Three new concepts of genotype wide adaptation levels I, II and III are presented and shown to the adequate describing quantitatively by measures such as superiority measure, P i , Eskridge's yield reliability measure, R i and Eskridge's yield reliability function, R i (d). These indices have been called quantitative measures of genotype wide adaptation levels I, II and III, respectively. Relationships (consistency) between the three measures were studied using data for grain yield of winter wheat advanced lines from 15 preliminary multi-environment trials carried out across Polish test locations in the years 1993-2007. The quantitative measures are simple to interpret and useful quantitative characteristics of genotype wide adaptation levels I, II and III. High Spearman rank correlation coefficients were found between each of the pairs of the quantitative measures of genotype wide adaptation levels I, II and III within all sets of winter wheat genotypes. Then, for evaluating wheat genotype wide adaptation level in each aspect only one of the considered measures could be sufficient. The studies delivered new results on the usefulness of quantitative measures of genotype wide adaptation level for winter wheat. These findings indicate that those measures could be also useful for comparative evaluation of genotype wide adaptation level in other crops.

Cultivar recommendation based on mean performance determined by multi-environment trials (METs) conducted on research stations could be unreliable and ineffective for assessing performance in farmers’ fields. It is important to improve the efficiency of cultivar recommendation based on METs. For this purpose, it would be useful to validate recommendations based on yield data obtained directly from farmers, i.e., through surveys. The aim of this study was to discuss the possibility and statistical methodology of assessing cultivar performance patterns based on yield data obtained through farmer surveys. We suggest that this might be accomplished by assessing the conformity of yield ranking and yield performance patterns between MET and survey datasets in the same growing regions. As an example, we compare winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield data obtained from Polish farmers via surveys with data obtained via METs. In the METs, cultivars were evaluated at two levels of crop-management, a moderate-input management (MIM) system and a high-input management (HIM) system. Based on the yield evaluations in the current study, half of the agro-ecological regions had relatively high levels of consistency in yield rankings between the MET MIM system and survey yield dataset. This indicated a relatively high efficiency of cultivar recommendations based on METs in these regions, especially for the MIM system. For the HIM system, however, with the exception of one region, we observed a poor degree of consistency in cultivar ranking.

The objectives of this study were to determine the contributions of genotype, management, and environment, as well as the effects of their interactions, on variations in the grain yield and its components for 25 cultivars of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and to evaluate the differences between the patterns of yield determination in two different groups of environments. The field trials performed in this study were performed across eight locations in Poland divided into two groups as follows: four with favorable and four with unfavorable soil conditions during two growing seasons. Variance components were used to test the impact of the cultivars, locations, years, and crop management and the effects of their interactions on grain yield and its components. The data for each cultivar were analyzed with path analysis and cluster analysis to distinguish groups of cultivars that had similar patterns of yield determination using three yield components and a grain yield quantity. The results of the study showed that a significant effect on grain yield was observed for management, but the responsiveness of its components was different depending on the location. Favorable soil conditions only caused variability in the spike number, whereas under unfavorable soil conditions, higher input management with intensive N fertilization caused a change in the number of grains per spike. The results of this study indicate that different yield formation patterns exist among bread wheat and that these patterns primarily depend on the genotype and growing conditions.

In order to deliver essential information related to flexible cultivar recommendations, the cultivars which have been released have to be evaluated under different crop management treatments across agro-ecosystems using two-factorial post-registration multi-environment trials. The objective of this study was to evaluate the yield adaptive patterns of 24 winter wheat cultivars tested across 20 trial locations and three consecutive cropping seasons. The evaluated winter wheat cultivars from many Western European countries and Poland showed different adaptive responses to the Polish agro-ecosystems under each of the crop management intensities. Under the high-input management, the cultivars Rapsodia, (UK) Bogatka and Nadobna (Poland) showed a wide adaptation. The cultivars Alcazar (France), Anthus (Germany), Batuta (Poland) and Boomer (UK) were the best adapted to lower-productive environments and poorly adapted to highly productive conditions under both management treatments.

The grouping of locations from local-scale multi-environmental trials (METs) into megaenvironments has been criticized. Some European countries, e.g. the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, have been characterized as possessing homogeneous environmental conditions. For aligned environmental conditions, it has been assumed that cultivar rankings will be similar and consequently cannot be used to designate mega-environments. An example of METs at the local scale is the Polish Post Registration Variety Testing System. The objective of this study was to determine groups of test sites within 16 Polish regions which are characterized by similar yield ranking of 50 winter wheat cultivars over three growing seasons (2011-2013). The compatibility of these cultivar yield rankings across regions was evaluated using Pearson correlation coefficients. Thereby, the 16 regions were divided into six groups (mega-environments) of locations. Regions within each group have similar cultivar rankings, whereas between groups, we observed different cultivar rankings, indicating crossover interactions. Besides similar cultivar yield responses the regions within megaenvironments were characterized also by similar environmental (soil and/or climate) conditions.

The aim of the study was to estimate the general and specific combining abilities (GCA and SCA) of 13 dessert strawberry cultivars: ‘Figaro’, ‘Salsa’, ‘Palomar’, ‘Granda’, ‘Camarosa’, ‘Elianny’, ‘Aromas’, ‘Diamante’, ‘Portola’, ‘Charlotte’, ‘San Andreas’, ‘Monterey’ and ‘Albion’ for tolerance to the major leaf diseases strawberry leaf spot (Mycosphaerella fragariae (Tul.) Lindau), leaf scorch (Diplocarpon earliana (Ell. & Ev.) Wolf) and powdery mildew (Sphaerotheca macularis (Wallr.) U. Braun). The crossing programme was performed in the winter of 2010/2011 in the glasshouse following a half-diallel cross mating design (Griffing’s method IV). Progenies of the 78 newly obtained families were evaluated in field conditions (randomized complete block design, 4 replicates, 15 plants per plot). Observations of the severity of plant infection with leaf spot, leaf scorch and powdery mildew were recorded from 2011 to 2013. Statistical analysis of data was performed according to Griffing’s fixed model. The most numerous significant and positive GCA effects were estimated for cv.‘Salsa’ for low plant susceptibility (tolerance) to all three diseases assessed. High GCA effects were also showed for cvs ‘Figaro’ and ‘San Andreas’—for low plant susceptibility to leaf spot and leaf scorch, and for cv.‘Diamante’—for low plant susceptibility to leaf spot and powdery mildew. Lower breeding values for the estimated traits were observed with cv.‘Camarosa’—for low susceptibility to leaf spot; with cvs ‘Palomar’ and ‘Granda’—for low plant susceptibility to leaf scorch, and with cvs ‘Monterey’, ‘Portola’ and ‘Charlotte’—for low plant susceptibility to powdery mildew. The lowest GCA effects for low plant susceptibility to the all three leaf diseases tested were observed with cv.‘Albion’. High usefulness for breeding new, resistant varieties has also been observed in the combination ‘Aromas’ × ‘Elianny’, which has significantly negative SCA effects for the susceptibility of plants to both strawberry leaf spot and leaf scorch.