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Golden calves or white elephants? Biotechnologies for wheat improvement

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Abstract

The 1990s have seen an acceleration in the development of new biotechnologies which can increase the efficiency of wheat breeding by providing new and novel sources of variation, speeding up the breeding cycle, and increasing the efficiency of selection. This paper reviews the most significant technologies and their probable impact on wheat breeding into the next millennium. Amongst techniques developed from the application of tissue culture methods, doubled haploid systems are at last making a contribution through the development of the maize pollination system. By the introduction of various improvements, this is now efficient enough to produce material from a range of adapted genotypes in large numbers, and varieties are entering national list trials from this system. Developments in tissue culture have also led to the realistic possibility of genetically engineering wheat, based on biolistic methods of gene delivery into immature embryos. Some problems relating to gene stability and expression remain to be resolved, but targets, particularly with respect to disease and pest resistance and end-use quality, are now being actively pursued. The development of the genetic wheat map using molecular marker systems has revolutionalised the power of genetical analysis in wheat, enabling agronomic trait loci, whether major genes or QTL, to be identified, located and 'tagged'. Additionally, strategies for the molecular cloning of loci are being developed, particularly by exploiting a comparative mapping approach which combines the genetical information from all cereals in a common framework. This will lead to tools for modifying crop phenotype in a directed fashion to produce improved and novel phenotypes.

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  1. Norwich Research Park, Colney, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

    J.W. Snape

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Snape, J. Golden calves or white elephants? Biotechnologies for wheat improvement. Euphytica 100, 207–217 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018343906495

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