Improving bread wheat using genomic tools is vital in speeding up
development of varieties with enhanced traits. Thus, Carlos Guzman from the
International Maize And Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other genetics
experts used large scale genomics and looked into the validity of genomic
selection to improve wheat with less field work and less lab work. Their
findings are published in Nature Genetics.

The researchers reported the genomic predictabilities of 35 key traits and
demonstrated the potential of genomic selection for wheat end-use quality.
They also performed a large genome-wide association study that led them to
the identification of several significant marker-trait association for 50
traits evaluated in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Moreover, they
developed a reference wheat genotype-phenotype map, explored allele
frequency dynamics over time and fingerprinted 44,624 wheat lines for
trait-associated markers, coming up with over 7.6 million data points.

The results of the study provides a valuable resource to the wheat community
for improving productivity and stress resilience.

[www.nature.com]