A landmark research survey on grain yield potential and climate
resiliencehas identified genomic regionsassociated with yield potential
and stress-resilience in bread wheat. Scientists from the International
Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) conducted a genome-wide
association study (GWAS) based on 100 datasets and 105,000 grain yield
observations from 55,568 wheat breeding lines developed by CIMMYT.

The researchers evaluated the lines between 2003 and 2019 in different
sites, years, planting systems, irrigation systems, and abiotic stresses
at CIMMYT's primary yield testing site, the Norman E. Borlaug
Experimental Research Station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, and in an
additional eight countries including Afghanistan,India, andMyanmar. The
researchers generated the grain-yield-associated marker profiles and
analyzed the grain-yield favorable allele frequencies for a large panel
of 73,142 wheat lines, resulting in 44.5 million data points. The marker
profiles showed that the CIMMYT global wheat germplasm is rich in grain
yield favorable alleles and is a trove for breeders to choose parents
and design strategic crosses based on complementary grain yield alleles
at desired loci.

"By dissecting the genetic basis of the elusive grain-yield trait, the
resources presented in our study provide great opportunities to
accelerate genomic breeding for high-yielding and climate-resilient
wheat varieties," said CIMMYT wheat breeder Philomin Juliana.

A challenge solved â?? CIMMYT
[www.cimmyt.org]