Harnessing Landrace Diversity Empowers Wheat Breeding for Climate Resilience

• DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.04.560903
• Publication Date: 2023-10-09T11:46:50Z
• Authors: Shifeng Cheng; Cong Feng; Luzie U. Wingen; Hong Cheng; Andrew B. Riche; Mei Jiang; Michelle Levering...; Zejian Huang; Sarah Collier; Simon Orford; Xiaoming Wang; Rajani Awal; Gary Barker; Tom O’Hara; Clare Lister; Ajay Siluveru; Jesús Quiroz-Chávez; Ricardo H. Ramíre...; Ruth Bryant; Simon Berry; Urmil Bansal; Harbans S. Bariana; Malcolm J. Bennett; Breno Bicego; Lorelei Bilham; James K.M. Brown; Amanda Burridge; Chris Burt; Milika Buurman; March Castle; Laetitia Chartrain; Baizhi Chen; Worku Denbel; Ahmed F. Elkot; Paul Fenwick; David Feuerhelm; John Foulkes; Oorbessy Gaju; Adam Gauley; Kumar Gaurav; Amber N. Hafeez; Ruirui Han; Richard Horler; Junliang Hou; Muhammad S. Iqbal; Matthew Kerton; Ankica Kondic-Spica; Ania Kowalski; Jacob Lage; Xiaolong Li; Hongbing Liu; Shiyan Liu; Alison Lovegrove; Lingling Ma; Cathy Mumford; Saroj Parmar; Charlie Philp; Darryl Playford; Alexandra M. Prze...; Zareen Sarfraz; David Schafer; Peter R. Shewry; Yan Shi; Gustavo Slafer; Baoxing Song; Bo Song; David Steele; Burkhard Steuernagel; Phillip Tailby; Simon Tyrrell; Abdul Waheed; Mercy N. Wamalwa; Xingwei Wang; Yanping Wei; Mark Winfield; Shishi Wu; Yubing Wu; Brande B.H. Wulff; Wenfei Xian; Yawen Xu; Yunfeng Xu; Quan Yuan; Xin Zhang; Keith J. Edwards; Laura Dixon; Paul Nicholson; Noam Chayut; Malcolm J. Hawkes...; Cristobal Uauy; Dale Sanders; Sanwen Huang; Simon Griffiths
• Keywords: Germ plasm; Trait

Abstract Breeding crops resilient to climate change is urgently needed help ensure food security. A key challenge harness genetic diversity optimise adaptation, yield, stress resilience and nutrition. We examined the phenotypic of A.E. Watkins landrace collection bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum ), a major global cereal, through whole-genome re-sequencing (827 landraces 208 modern cultivars) in-depth field evaluation spanning decade. discovered that cultivars are derived from just two seven ancestral groups wheat, leaving five as previously untapped sources for breeding. This provides access landrace-specific functional variations using structured germplasm, genotyping informatics resources. Employing complementary populations approaches, we identified thousands high-resolution quantitative trait loci (QTL) significant marker–trait associations traits, revealing many Watkins-unique can confer superior traits in wheat. Furthermore, functionally verified causative genes climate-change nutritional enhancement resistance blast. Finally, assessed effects 44,338 haplotypes, introgressed 143 prioritised QTL context cultivars, bridging gap between current study establishes framework systematically utilising crop improvement achieve sustainable