Biotechnology and Wheat

Title 1: wheat genome sequencing
Title 2: Biotechnology and Wheat
Title 3: Current status of Wheat research

Wheat is leading crop among all the cereal crops of the world. Globally it is grown on about 17 % of the total crop area, staple food of about 40 % of the world population and makes up about 20% calories, 55 % of carbohydrates and proteins in human nutrition.

Wheat production had a great increase in last four decades but now it s moving towards decline. To meet human demands by 2050, grain production needs to increase at an annual rate of 2%. There are two ways to reach this goal, either we have to increase the area of production of this crop or to increase the yield potential of our wheat varities.Former is difficult as growing population also need more space for housing and other needs but later is possible through the use of advance scientific knowledge.

Wheat improvement is going on since its domestication. Early farmers select plants for large grains and other desirable characters. Then they started to cross desirable plants. The origins of formal wheat breeding lie in the nineteenth century, when single line varieties were created through selection of seed from a single plant noted to have desired properties. Modern wheat breeding developed in the first years of the twentieth century and was closely linked to the development of Mendelian genetics. A great improvement was the development of dwarf wheat varieties which brought a revolution in world crop production. This golden era is named as green revolution. With the growing knowledge of science advances in breeding methods are going on.

In recent years, biotechnology is emerging as one of the latest tools of agricultural research. Biotechnology involves the systematic application of biological processes for the beneficial use of mankind. One of the areas of plant biotechnology involves the delivery, integration and expression of defined genes into plant cells, which can be grown in artificial culture media to regenerate plants. Thus biotechnological approaches have the potential to complement conventional methods of breeding by reducing the time taken to produce cultivars with improved characteristics. The new tools of biotechnology not only have the potential for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of wheat breeding programs, but also provide insights into the genetic control of key traits to be used for genetic manipulation.

Presently International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium is established by a group of plant scientists, breeders, and growers dedicated to sequencing the wheat genome to enhance our knowledge of the structure and function of the wheat genome. By gaining increased understanding of the biology of agronomically important traits and deploying state-of-the-art molecular tools, plant scientists and breeders will be able to accelerate wheat improvement to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The Consortium is committed to ensuring that the sequence of the wheat genome and the resulting DNA-based tools are available for all to use without restriction.

Genome sequencing is not a single techniques by which we can identify the genes,1st of all identification of chromosomes by using different cytogenomic techniques, isolation of DNA of targeted chromosome , PCR amplification etc are different steps of this procedure. We can make varieties which can resist biotic stresses like disease and insect attack and a biotic stresses like drought and heat tolerance.

By genome sequencing we can identify the genes which show resistance to different diseases e.gLr19, Lr22/Lr40 has the resistance for leaf rust so we can incorporate these genes in the breeding program to establish the resistant lines. Wheat genome sequence will provide perfect markers for difficult traits, harness genetic diversity, enhance quality, increase yield of the crop.

Many traits contribute to a wheat variety’s ability to cope with water limited conditions. As a result there is not just one single ‘drought-tolerance’ gene that will solely improve wheat production during drought. Specific DNA fragments that flag the location of useful genes associated with some drought adaptive traits in cereals have been identified. These ‘anonymous’ DNA markers can help plant breeders quickly and easily determine if a new wheat breeding line has the desired gene in it and hence will exhibit the desired drought adaptive trait Only a small number of DNA markers are being used for drought adaptive traits, however many more are in the pipeline. They are being evaluated in a broad range of plant material to determine whether they can be used in a cost effective manner in our wheat breeding programs.

The use of sequencing information of the wheat genome will result ultimately in healthier and more nutritious food that could lead to vast improvements in human and animal health. We can only reach to our goal of increased wheat yield by incorporating latest knowledge in to our conventional improvement programs.