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Presenter

Yasir Gorafi, Tottori University, International Platform for Dryland Research and Education, Japan

Outline

Introducing genes from wild relatives is the best option to increase genetic diversity and discover new alleles necessary for wheat improvement.
We developed a new strategy for fast and efficient utilization of wild relative’s genetic diversity for wheat breeding. Following this strategy, two populations in the background of the hexaploid wheat cultivar “Norin 61” and tetraploid wheat cultivar “Miki 3” were developed. The hexaploid wheat population developed by crossing “Norin 61” and 43 primary synthetic wheat lines represent 43 different Aegilops tauschii accessions from the entire range of the species range. The tetraploid wheat population developed by crossing “Miki 3” with nine wild emmer wheat accessions from the two main lineages.
The hexaploid wheat population has been evaluated for heat, drought, combined heat-drought, combined heat-salinity, combined heat-phosphorous deficiency, and combined heat-nitrogen deficiency tolerance. The durum wheat population has been evaluated for heat stress tolerance.
Our findings revealed that our strategy was very efficient in exploring the diversity of the wild relatives in the background of bread and durum wheats. We were able to identify several potential germplasm lines and allele sources for bread and durum wheat improvement against several stresses.

References

• Gorafi, Y.S.A., Kim, JS., Elbashir, A.A.E. et al. A population of wheat multiple synthetic derivatives: an effective platform to explore, harness and utilize genetic diversity of Aegilops tauschii for wheat improvement. Theor Appl Genet 131, 1615–1626 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-018-3102-xhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-018-3102-x
• Itam, M.O., Mega, R., Gorafi, Y.S.A. et al. Genomic analysis for heat and combined heat–drought resilience in bread wheat under field conditions. Theor Appl Genet 135, 337–350 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03969-x
• Balla, M.Y., Gorafi, Y.S.A., Kamal, N.M. et al. Harnessing the diversity of wild emmer wheat for genetic improvement of durum wheat. Theor Appl Genet (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04062-7

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