LANDRACES · Exploiting the legacy of Central European wheat landraces for improving the ecological adaptation ability of wheat

Exploiting the legacy of Central European wheat landraces for improving the ecological adaptation ability of wheat

The current wheat production is 752 million tonnes with a requirement to reach 858 million tonnes in 2050, due to the predicted growth of the world population from 7.6 billion to 9.6 billion. Today wheat production is facing such challenges as climate change and the narrow genetic diversity of cultivated wheat imposed by the continuous selection for high yielding ability, cannot surmount such difficulties. Wheat landraces represent a valuable basis of genetic diversity and specific adaptation to local environmental conditions according to their place of origin. Their population genetic structure, buffering capacity, and a combination of morpho-physiological traits implies a better tolerance to changing climate conditions and to stress environments than modern cultivars. A significant loss of landrace varieties in both Europe and worldwide already caused a massive loss of crop genetic diversity and charged a substantial risk for future food security. A large set of Central European wheat landraces were collected during the 1950-60s and preserved in the Tapioszele Gene Bank collection (Hungary) but up till now, it has not been systematically characterized. The collection represents an important legacy and provides a vast and untapped source of genetic variation for wheat improvement. Our major research aim was to investigate the genetic diversity hidden in the Central European wheat landrace collection and to compare it with modern wheat cultivars. We aimed to correlate the genetic background of every individual landrace to its actual performance and to identify new components to improve wheat quality and stress tolerance. We introduced the most up to date, high throughput DNA Chip genome analysis method to the Hungarian wheat breeding programs to make a direct comparison between the genetic backgrounds of the individual landrace cultivars. Structure and principal component analysis showed considerable differences among landraces and modern wheat cultivars, thus the Central European wheat landrace collection could be a valuable reservoir of genetic variability suitable for breeders to select genetically distant parents. Pre-breeding programs were initiated with the best performing landraces to introduce their favourable characteristics to modern wheat cultivars by traditional crossing.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union