b'Figure 2. U.S. Average Winter Wheat Yield andAlternative Trend Models, 1960-201450Avg. = 44.7 bu./ac. How we use genetic 45 markers has really changed the tenor and 40 Avg. = 38.0 bu./ac. structure of wheat Yield (bu/acre)breeding programs. Those 35 tools have moved into small grain breeding y = 0.3851x+26.53630 R2 = 0.8416 programs. Maize is still ahead of us, but we are 25 y = 0.4212x+25.5246 catching up with it. R2 = 0.5626Allan Fritz201960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010YearSOURCE: NASS/USDArole for public programs asdecoding task, 85% of wheatssays. We have doubled hap- resistance is becoming a high new breeders encounter theDNA consists of repetitiveloid technology, but it is notpriority. They are thinking challenges of breeding new,sequences. Its like solvinga new technology any longer.about diseases that may or improved varieties. a giant jigsaw puzzle thatUsing doubled haploid tonot be here. There is some depicts the same patch ofspeed up breeding along withevidence that there are race Wheat Genome Decoded blue sky three times over.the implementation of mark- changes in rust pathogens. Wheat has a complicatedYou have no idea whereers and the recent sequencingThe durability of rust resist-genome that has takenthings go, commented Kellyehas given us a much moreance has been a long-term time to decode. It took theEversole, who led the IWGSC.robust platform to employissue. Moving toward meth-International Wheat GenomeIts really a miracle that wemarkers more like they areods that give durable resist-Sequencing Consortiumfinished.employed in maize breedingance to major pathogens (IWGSC), a group of research- Compared to the increasedwith genomic selection andlike rust diseases are critical. ers from 19 countries, 14knowledge available to cornprediction. How we use thoseThere are some additional years and around $75 mil- and soybean breeders, theremarkers has really changedopportunities around quality lion before they were ablehave been relatively fewthe tenor and structure of ourtraits that are not necessarily to publish wheats complexadvances in wheat breedingbreeding program. traditional pan bread quali-and very large genome withinformation until the IWGSCties. Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., 107,000 genes in 2018. Justpublished the wheat genome. Looking to the Future for example, in March 2020, one of wheats chromosomes There is definitely a lot ofWhat are wheat breedersannounced the U.S. Patent (3B) is larger than the entirework in that area looking atlooking at 10 years into theand Trademark Office had soybean genome. Furtherdifferent ways to manipulatefuture? A few things top theawarded a patent for its yield-complicating the IWGSCswheats genome map, Fritzlistfusarium head blightimproving allele for high fiber, INTERNATIONAL EDITION 2020SEEDWORLD.COM /53'