We are mobilizing genetic diversity to enhance wheat yields and meet food security needs. Without genetic diversity, breeders will be unable to make the progress necessary to feed future generations. It is the key to delivering varieties to farmers with the “genetic grit” to fight devastating disease, destructive pests, and severe climates. The WGRC IUCRC […]

Phenotypic Characterization of Wild Wheat Core Sets Project Summary: Core collections of Aegilops tauschii (40 accessions) and tetraploid wheat (92 accessions) were phenotyped for important traits in greenhouse, field and rainout shelter experiments.  These core sets had greenhouse data collected during the years of 2015-2018 for resistance to leaf rust, stripe rust, tan spot, Septoria nodorum Hessian […]

Quality Evaluation of Wild Emmer Introgressions Project Summary: This is a 2-year project to evaluate quality traits in populations of wheat derived from backcrosses of bread wheat to wild emmer at a preliminary stage of germplasm development.  Optional extensions of this project to develop genomic information, DH lines, and yield trial plots that would provide […]

Direct Assessment of Novel Glutenin Alleles in Aegilops tauschii Project Summary For milling and baking quality of raised breads there are important genetic determinants including strong effects from the glutenin genes.  Being situated on different genomes, the various alleles of high-molecular weight and low-molecular weight glutenins represent inherited diversity from different wheat ancestors.  Though the […]

Novel Genetics Stocks for Chromosome-wide Enhancement of Genetic Recombination Project Summary: Novel gene transfers from wild wheat relatives to hexaploid bread wheat is restricted due to predominance of homologous recombination. The presence of Pairing homoeologous 1 (Ph1) gene in the 5BL arm of the wheat chromosome allows only homologous chromosomes to pair and recombine. Previously […]

Genetic Analyses of Rust Resistance in Aegilops tauschii Project Summary: Diverse genetic components of disease resistance in wheat are critical to ensure long-term food security. Aegilops tauschii was documented to preserve many disease resistance genes that are not present in bread wheat. Hundreds of Aegilops tauschii accessions have been collected and characterized for their resistance […]

Field-based Germplasm Development from Wild Species Project Summary: This is a continuation (years 3 – 5) of a project with the objectives of: 1) establishing a prebreeding program that produces enhanced germplasm derived from the wild wheat collections that is suitable for use in commercial wheat breeding programs and 2) producing introgession libraries that immortalize […]

Identification and Characterization of New Sources of Genetic Resistance to Wheat Stem Sawfly in Wild Wheat Species Project Summary: Wheat stem sawfly (WSS, Cephus cinctus) has long been considered the most important pest of wheat in the northern Great Plains of North America. In recent years, damage from WSS has expanded to areas of Nebraska, […]

Identification of Chemical Drivers of Liking in Wheat Project Summary: The overall goal of this proposal is to identify molecular markers that enable genomic breeding programs to enhance flavor traits of wheat germ plasm. To achieve this goal the current proposal is focused on the identification of volatile and non-volatile flavor compounds or modulators in […]