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Several studies have indicated that ample genetic variation exists in wheat for the success of a biofortified wheat breeding program. Consequently, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) embarked upon the breeding program to develop and deploy biofortified wheat lines and the NARS in South Asia and Africa, frequently get access to two important nurseries, namely High Zinc Advance Nursery (HZAN) and Harvest Plus Yield Trial (HPYT), and bred at CIMMYT for varietal improvement. These nurseries are field-evaluated at multiple locations to shortlist candidate varieties possessing more than 6 ppm additional Zn concentration. Following that, elite lines are submitted to the varietal release programs in the relevant countries. Recently, sharing of early-generation segregating materials (F4/F5) was started for the fast-track development of locally adapted varieties for high Zn. The new biofortified varieties that have a 100% target increment for grain Zn concentration (37 ppm) and are agronomically comparable to, or superior to, popular South Asian wheat cultivars were released in target countries (e.g., Zincol-2016 and Akbar-2019). Resistance to major diseases, such as yellow rust and stem rust (Ug99), was also incorporated into zinc-enriched wheat lines. So far, 25 biofortified wheat varieties have been released in eight different countries. Since 2020, CIMMYT has begun to integrate grain Zn and Fe traits into all germplasm and breeding pipelines aimed at more than 60 million ha of wheat-growing areas of Asia Africa, and Latin America. By incorporating higher levels of key nutrients in all breeding lines without compromising on agronomic performance will lead to availability of a larger number of biofortified varieties to farmers.

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