National wheat breeding programs are getting a boost from an international partnership to mobilize diversity from genebanks for pest and climate resilience

Esta historia también está disponible en español: En busca de diversidad genética para luchar contra el cambio climático

Modern crop improvement practices have helped secure the world’s wheat supply, but the growing threat of pathogens and environmental stressors could undo this achievement. Additional genetic diversity housed in genetic resource collections offers scientists the potential to adapt crops to these challenges.

As part of the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) project, CIMMYT scientist Sukhwinder Singh led research on direct introgression of untapped diversity into elite wheat lines involving 15 international institutes across 8 countries to study how this can be done.

Mobilizing genebanks

Genebanks are a crucial piece of the puzzle. According to Singh, genebanks hold many diverse accessions of wheat landraces and wild species with beneficial traits, but until recently the entire breadth of diversity has never been explored and thousands of accessions have been “sitting on the shelves.”

Building on research undertaken through the SeeD project, which genetically characterized nearly 80,000 samples of wheat from the seed banks of CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Singh and colleagues collected vast and detailed data on diversity within genebanks, and developed a faster way to put it to use for variety development.

The research targets beneficial traits in these accessions through genome mapping, passing them to breeding programs around the world.

First, the team undertook a large meta-survey of genetic resources from wild wheat accessions held in genebanks, to create a catalogue of improved traits and identify a subset of diverse accessions. Next, they developed a strategic three-way crossing method among 366 genebank accessions and the best historical elite varieties to reduce the time between the original introduction and deployment of an improved variety.

A race against time

Introducing beneficial genes from genetic resources into elite cultivars demands substantial resources, such as time and money, that national programs do not always have in abundance.
“Breeding wheat from a national perspective is a race against pathogens and other abiotic threats,” said Deepmala Sehgal, wheat geneticist at CIMMYT.

The outcomes from CIMMYT’s research help ease this burden. A diverse array of new germplasm, resulting from crosses of genebank accessions with elite varieties made through the SeeD project is currently used by national breeding programs — such as in India, Kenya, Mexico and Pakistan — to make new crosses or evaluate the germplasm in yield trials in their own environments. Overall, national breeding programs have adopted 95 lines for their targeted breeding programs and 7 lines are currently undergoing varietal trials. Lines developed in Mexico showed increased resistance to abiotic stresses. In Pakistan, lines tested exhibited increased disease resistance; and in India, many tested lines are now part of the national cultivar release system.

International collaboration takes action

At CIMMYT, many of the developed lines carrying groupings of genetic variants, known as haplotypes, are being used in trait pipelines to introduce these novel genomic regions into advanced elite lines. CIMMYT researchers are collaborating with physiologists to dissect any underlying physiological mechanisms associated with the research team’s findings.

“Through the haplotypes-based analysis in the pre-breeding germplasm, we identified exotic genome footprints in bread wheat, and efforts are underway to mobilize the research outputs in breeding pipelines,” Sehgal said. “This work has also delivered pre-breeding lines to trait pipelines within national breeding programs.”

International collaborations play a crucial role in preserving crop diversity, bringing out successful products and, sharing new methods and knowledge.

This work would not have been possible without the support of the Government of Mexico, through the MasAgro Biodiversidad project, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) of the United Kingdom, who provided the needed funding for extensive multi-location trials.

International collaboration takes action

At CIMMYT, many of the developed lines carrying groupings of genetic variants, known as haplotypes, are being used in trait pipelines to introduce these novel genomic regions into advanced elite lines. CIMMYT researchers are collaborating with physiologists to dissect any underlying physiological mechanisms associated with the research team’s findings.

“Through the haplotypes-based analysis in the pre-breeding germplasm, we identified exotic genome footprints in bread wheat, and efforts are underway to mobilize the research outputs in breeding pipelines,” Sehgal said. “This work has also delivered pre-breeding lines to trait pipelines within national breeding programs.”

International collaborations play a crucial role in preserving crop diversity, bringing out successful products and, sharing new methods and knowledge.

This work would not have been possible without the support of the Government of Mexico, through the MasAgro Biodiversidad project, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) of the United Kingdom, who provided the needed funding for extensive multi-location trials.