Evolutionary changes of weed competitive traits in winter wheat composite cross populations in organic and conventional farming systems

•This is the first study documenting systems effects on the evolution of the composite cross populations (CCP).•Characteristics for early vigour, but not allelopathy, were improved after 5 years in organically-managed CC populations.•Evolutionarily, parallel CCPs demonstrated very similar behaviour indicating that the differences are related to individual populations and management systems.•Evolutionary changes towards early vigour in the organic CCPs are probably selection for higher nitrogen uptake increased competition for light and larger seeds.•Hydroponics and bioassays techniques offer an additional highly sensitive way to study early vigour and allelopathy under controlled conditions. Seedling root and shoot growth in hydroponics and allelopathic activity using a bioassay have been studied in very diverse populations of winter wheat grown under either organic or conventional conditions for a number of generations and subjected only to natural selection. The study was conducted on seeds from generation 6 (F6) and 11 (F11) from three composite cross populations (CCPs) produced by the Organic Research Centre in the UK. Since the F5 the populations were maintained under organic and conventional conditions in Germany. Two parallel populations were created from each CC, resulting in a total of six organic and six conventional CCPs. The sets of parallel populations showed similar evolutionary trends indicating that the observed changes are related to differences in management rather than chance. Seedling root length and seedling root and shoot weight in the F11 of the organically-managed CCPs were significantly greater than in the organic F6 CCPs. In the conventionally-managed CCPs no such differences were observed. Both organic and conventional CCPs produced for quality showed higher early root and shoot growth than those produced for yield pointing to genetic differences among population types and highlighting the importance of early vigour for NUE. There were no significant differences in the allelopathic activity of the populations and between generations. The Shannon-Weaver diversity indices were similar for the studied traits in organic and conventional CCPs and hence no major changes in diversity had occurred between F6 to F11. As changes in plant height were small and weed pressure in the fields low it is concluded that the observed differences are more related to NUE, rather than intra-specific competition for light or the direct effect of increas