Introgressions from wild wheat relatives have been important sources of variation in the CIMMYT wheat program since its inception: Sr2 and 1B/1R two notable examples with major impact in developing world agriculture. Over 1,000 hexaploid breadwheats have been re-synthesized from progenitor species at CIMMYT over the past 20 years. These ?synthetics? have been a rich source of new variation for resistance or tolerance to a range of disease and abiotic stresses. Derivatives of these synthetics are beginning to be released as varieties in a number of developing countries. Alien segments carrying Sr24/Lr24, Sr25/Lr19, Sr26, Sr1A.1R, Sr38/Lr37/Yr17 are also used extensively in the CIMMYT wheat program conferring resistance to rust and also yield increases in some instances.|Introgression of variation from distant relatives and progenitor species continues to be a strong focus in the search for improved yield potential, nutrient-use efficiency and resistance or tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. New synthetics are being made to capture variation from species and accessions not present in existing synthetics; a substantial proportion based on the progenitors of durum wheat. A greater diversity of rye segments is being investigated as well as variation from Leymus and other wild relatives. Increasing use has been made of molecular analyses to identify which sources of variation should be priority targets and to better characterize variation already introgressed.|Details of current work on characterization and introgression of variation from wild relatives will be presented.

Global Wheat Program

English

Lucia Segura

INT2902|INT1511|INT2692|INT0599|INT0610