ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Climate-Smart Agronomy
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Crop Production Systems for Emerging Climate Trends Under Global Warming: Practices, Challenges, and Future DirectionsView all 3 articles
Zero Tillage Enhances Cold Stress Tolerance and Yield Stability in Dryland Wheat
Provisionally accepted
- 1Plant and Environmental Sciences, New Mexico State University, Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde, United States
- 2Dryland Agricultural Research Institute, Maragheh, Iran
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Cold stress limits rainfed wheat productivity. We combined a cold‑room assay (+4 → −15 °C) with a two‑year split–split plot field trial to test whether zero tillage (ZT) and sowing date improve cold tolerance across bread and durum cultivars. ZT, especially with September sowing, enhanced PSII performance (higher ETo/RC, Fv/Fm, Fv/Fo; lower ABS/RC and Fo/Fm), increased antioxidant activity (SOD, APX, CAT), and reduced H₂O₂ and MDA, leading to higher and more stable grain yield. Winter cultivars sustained pigments and antioxidant defense better than spring types. These results position ZT + early sowing as a practical, climate‑smart strategy to buffer cold stress and stabilize yields in drylands.
Keywords: Antioxidant Enzymes, Chlorophyll Fluorescence, cold stress, Dryland wheat, Yield stability, Zero tillage
Received: 18 Dec 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zehtab Salmasi, Khorsandi and Lotfi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Saeid Zehtab Salmasi
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