Exploring Untapped Wheat Genetic Resources to Boost Food Security

Abstract

Increasing the genetic diversity of wheat is key to its future production in terms of increasing yields, resistance to diseases and adaptability to fluctuations in global climate. The use of the progenitor species of wheat and also its wild relatives uniquely provides a route to vastly increase the genetic variation available to wheat breeders for the development of new, superior wheat varieties. The introduction of genetic variation from the wild relatives of wheat in the form of introduced chromo­some segments or introgressions, has taken place for hundreds of years, albeit largely unintentionally in farmers’ fields. However, the use of the wild relatives became more systematic from the 1950s onwards. The work has previously been hampered due to a lack of technology for the identification and characterisation of the introgressions and consequently the strategic use of the wild relatives. The advances in molecular biology over recent years now make it possible to generate wheat/wild relative introgressions on a scale not previously possible. In fact, the greatest threat to this area of work is now the lack of scientists/breeders with the understanding of chromosomes and their manipulation.