Post on 18-Jun-2018
21112005
Synthetic wheat
– an underutilized genetic resource in Nordic wheat breeding
Morten Lillemo, IPM, UMB
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
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Wheat evolution
Genetic diversity of bread wheat is low, especially at the D-genome
Genetic diversity of bread wheat is low, especially at the D-genome
There is a huge genetic diversity in Ae. tauschiiThere is a huge genetic diversity in Ae. tauschii
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
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Durum wheat (AABB)
Aegilopstauschii(DD)
Synthetic hexaploid wheat (AABBDD)
Synthetic hexaploid wheat
More than 1000 lines developed at CIMMYT
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Don’t judge synthetic wheatsby their phenotypes!
�Less than impressive in terms of
agronomic characters
– tall, often late heading and maturing
– hard glumes, difficult to thresh
�But...
– Fully crossable with normal bread wheat
– Free-threshing types can easily be
recovered already in F2 or F3
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Examples of useful traits
�Disease resistance
– Karnal Bunt, Fusarium head blight, Septoriatritici leaf blotch, Stagonospora nodorumglume blotch, Helminthosporium leaf blotch,
Stem rust, Leaf rust, Stripe rust, Powdery
mildew etc...
�Abiotic stress tolerance
– Drought, salinity, waterlogging, heat
�Quality
– Grain softness
– Protein composition
– Pre-harvest sprouting
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
What about yield?
�Difficult to judge by the phenotype
itself
�Many QTL studies have shown yield-
enhancing QTL from wild relatives
(e.g. tomato and rice)
�Synthetic wheat is no exception, but...
�.... yield QTL are hidden in a poor
agronomic phenotype
�.... must be introgressed into adapted
germplasm to be detected
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Use of synthetic wheat at CIMMYT
�Limited backcross strategy highly successful
�Big BC1F1 or BC1F2 populations necessary
�Initial focus on disease resistance
�Major improvements in drought resistance
�VOROBEY
– CROC_1/Ae.tauschii (224)//OPATA/3/PASTOR
– Biggest breakthrough in wide adaptability since the
Veery’s
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
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�% of advanced lines in international nurseries based on
synthetic wheat (rainfed wheat breeding program)
Use of synthetic wheat at CIMMYT
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Use of synthetic wheat in Australia
�Synthetic backcross derived lines outperforming
leading varieties by 8-30% (Ogbonnaya et al, 2007)
�The Synthetic-Enriched Resources for Genetic
Enhancement (synERGE) program (DPI, Victoria)
1. Discovering novel genetic diversity
2. Dissecting the genetic and physiological basis
3. Developing diagnostic or linked molecular markers
4. Developing introgression lines for wheat breeding
�Targeted traits:
– pre-harvest sprouting, drought, salinity, CCN, yellow
leaf spot
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Success in China
�Used CIMMYT synthetics in
breeding programs since 1995
�Large kernels, high spike weight,
resistance to new races of stripe
rust
�Four synthetic-derived varieties
released in Sichuan since 2003
�Chuanmai 42
– out-yielded commercial check variety
by 23%
– grown on >100 000 ha since 2006
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10Wuyun Yang
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
What are we doing in Norway?
448 synthetic wheats from
CIMMYT tested for powdery
mildew resistance
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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Synthetic wheats with promising partial resistance to powdery mildew
Mean severity (%) across 8 environments in Norway and Switzerland:
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Line Name PM
SYNT448-378 CROC_1/Ae.tauschii (256) 4.8
SYNT448-173 68.111/R//W/3/F/4/RABI/5/Ae.tauschii (905) 5.7
SYNT448-400 CROC_1/Ae.tauschii (362) 6.1
SYNT448-280 GAN/Ae.tauschii (897) 6.6
SYNT448-144 CROC_1/Ae.tauschii (662) 8.0
SYNT448-140 CPI/GE/3/GO//JO69/CRA/4/Ae.tauschii (633) 8.2
SYNT448-067 ARLIN_1/Ae.tauschii (225) 8.8
SYNT448-277 SNIPE/YAV79//D/TEAL/3/Ae.tauschii (877) 10.5
SYNT448-086 GARZA/BOY//Ae.tauschii (311) 10.7
SYNT448-316 AJAIA/Ae.tauschii (330) 12.1
SYNT448-264 SCOOP_1/Ae.tauschii (662) 15.2
Check Saar 12.5
Check Naxos 11.5
Check MS273-150 42.5
Check Avocet 75.2
Lillemo et al., unpublished
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Small-scale pre-breeding
�Lines with promising partial resistance to powdery
mildew has been crossed with adapted cultivars
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�Big space-planted
BC1F2 populations
�Phenotypic selection
for PM resistance
and plant type
�Material now in
BC1F4
�This is great fun!
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
www.umb.no
Ideas for a Nordic project
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�Screen synthetic wheats for traits important to
Nordic wheat breeding
– e.g. resistance to Fusarium head blight and Leaf blotch diseases
�Make limited backcrosses to adapted varieties
– Phenotypic selection in the field based on big space-planted
breeding populations
– Output: Breeding lines with beneficial traits from the synthetic
parents in adapted genetic backgrounds
�Develop AB-QTL populations from the most
promising crosses
– Look for yield-enhancing traits from synthetic wheat
– Output: Introgression lines with traits of interest and linked
molecular markers for use in breeding
A jointly funded pre-
breeding activity serving
wheat breeding
programs in the Nordic
countries?
A jointly funded pre-
breeding activity serving
wheat breeding
programs in the Nordic
countries?