Tritordeum: Triticale’s New Brother Cereal

Abstract

The amphiploids between Hordeum chilense and Triticutn spp. (tritordeum) resemble their wheat parents agronomically. We have synthesized more than one hundred primary tritordeums for breeding a new cereal crop. From the results obtained on the first two cycles of selection, in which the yield level of tritordeum was raised to that of traditional wheat varieties, it is clear that tritordeum has the potential to become a crop when sufficient breeding effort is applied. Tritordeum is already been exploited as a bridge for introducing the genetic variability available in the section Anisolepis of the genus Hordeum into wheat.