Genomic Strategies for Genetic Resources Characterization to Face the New Challenges of Wheat Breeding

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Breeding and Genetics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 April 2022) | Viewed by 3070

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (CNR-IBBR), National Research Council of Italy, 70126 Bari, Italy
Interests: diversity in plant genetic resources (PGR); durum wheat breeding and genetics; genomic approaches to understand the genetic basis of complex traits
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CREA Research Centre for Cereal and Industrial Crops, 71122 Foggia, Italy
Interests: plant genomics; bioinformatic; NGS data analysis; Investigation of plant genomes; genetic improvement of plant species

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wheat is one of the most relevant staple crops on earth since it is considered an important source of components that are essential or beneficial for human health.

Today, the connectivity between wheat and climate is an inevitable factor. In recent decades, climate changes have affected wheat production worldwide, raising major concerns for national and international food security. Fortunately, biodiversity significantly contributes to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Therefore, harnessing genetic resources in wheat is useful for developing genotypes resilient to climate change. To date, germplasm collections, including wild relatives and landraces, are a largely untapped source of desirable traits. In addition, recent advances in genomics are boosting the exploitation of the genetic diversity within wild relatives and landraces.

In this Special Issue, we welcome original articles and reviews (a reduced number) dealing with topics related to the use of the genetic resources of wheat to identify and/or develop new cultivars with superior alleles that can better adapt to climate change. Contributions highlighting the usefulness of germplasm collections using genomic approaches to improve the knowledge of desirable alleles for complex traits are welcome.

Dr. Francesca Taranto
Dr. Salvatore Esposito
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wheat
  • genetic resources
  • climate changes
  • genomics
  • breeding

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

18 pages, 20161 KiB  
Article
Intra- and Inter-Population Genetic Diversity of “Russello” and “Timilia” Landraces from Sicily: A Proxy towards the Identification of Favorable Alleles in Durum Wheat
by Francesca Taranto, Ermanno Di Serio, Monica Marilena Miazzi, Stefano Pavan, Sergio Saia, Pasquale De Vita and Nunzio D’Agostino
Agronomy 2022, 12(6), 1326; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy12061326 - 30 May 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2494
Abstract
Climate change and global population growth call for urgent recovery of genetic variation from underexploited or unexplored durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) landraces. Indeed, these untapped genetic resources can be a valuable source of favorable alleles for environmental adaptation and [...] Read more.
Climate change and global population growth call for urgent recovery of genetic variation from underexploited or unexplored durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) landraces. Indeed, these untapped genetic resources can be a valuable source of favorable alleles for environmental adaptation and tolerance or resistance to (a)biotic stress. In southern Italy, in addition to the widespread modern and highly productive durum wheat cultivars, various landraces have been rediscovered and reused for their adaptation to sustainable and low-input cropping systems and for their peculiar qualitative characteristics. Sicily is a semiarid area rich in landraces, some of which are independently reproduced by many farmers. Among these, “Timilia” and “Russello” have been independently grown in various areas and are now cultivated, mostly under organic systems, for their hypothetical greater benefits and height, which give them a high level of competitiveness against weeds despite their low yield potential. So far, there is little information on the genetic variations of “Timilia” and “Russello” despite their putative origin from a common funder. This work aims to dissect the genetic variation patterns of two large germplasm collections of “Timilia” and “Russello” using SNP genotyping. The analysis of intra- and inter-population genetic variation and the identification of divergent loci between genetic groups showed that (i) there are two “Russello” genetic groups associated with different Sicilian geographical areas, which differ in important traits related to gluten quality and adaptation, and (ii) the individuals of “Timilia”, although presenting wide genetic variation, have undergone a conservative selection, likely associated with their distinctive traits. This work paves the way for a deeper exploration of the wide genetic diversity in Sicilian landraces, which could be conveniently exploited in future breeding programs, and points out that intra-population genetic diversity should be taken into account when ‘conservation varieties’ are to be registered in national registers of crops. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop