Fig. 4.
Comparison of kernel weight per ear (g) at maturity (GWear) with the photosynthetic contribution of the ear and the flag leaf during grain filling, estimated from the potential biomass (g) produced by each of the two organs from heading to maturity based in the time-integration of the irradiance intercepted by the canopy layers where the ear and the flag leaf are placed (see ‘Material and methods’ section). Each bar represents the mean values ±SD of the six genotypes and the three replications per genotype during the 2012 and 2013 crop cycle (one genotype was discarded due to early phenology in 2012). Mean values with different superscripted letters are significantly different according to the Tukey’s honestly significant difference test (P<0.05). The experiment was performed under field conditions as described in previous figures.