CULTIVAR DEVELOPMENT: ACCELERATED INTROGRESSION OF SYNTHETIC HEXAPLOID DERIVED DIVERSITY INTO AN APPLIED HARD WINTER WHEAT BREEDING PROGRAM

The long-term goal of this project is to increase the efficiency of selection in a cooperative wheat breeding program for the development of impactful cultivars. This project will focus on later stage cultivar development to address the following A1141 program area priorities: (1) improvement of crop productivity, quality, and performance in local and regional production environments; (2) combining conventional and genomics-enabled breeding for applied cultivar development; and (3) increase crop resiliency via selection of lines with elevated yield stability under abiotic stress and more durable disease and pest resistance.Project objectives that will support this goal are (1) utilize genomics-enabled breeding resources to predict top yielding breeding lines across collaborative research programs, (2) integrate selected doubled haploids developed by cooperative breeding programs into the field trial for advanced testing, and (3) evaluate these top predicted lines in regional yield trials to identify impactful cultivars.