Triticale: Milestones, Millstones, and World Food

Abstract

Triticale is a synthesized crop, conceived with the idea of combining the best of both of its parents-wheat and rye. There was a long period of frustration and disappointment since the first sterile wheat-rye hybrids appeared in wheat fields until the time when the most appropriate type of hybrids were made. First octoploid triticale was produced from common hexaploid wheat x rye amphiploids. These did not fulfill the original dream for triticale. It was the idea that durum (tetraploid) wheat x rye hybrids may be more productive than octoploid types that renewed optimism that a truly new synthesized crop could be achieved. This third international symposium is a tribute to the validity of the that concept. The symposium upheld the excellence of the previous ones in Sydney, Australia in 1987 and Passo Fundo, Brazil in 1990. The global interest in triticale was obvious from the offering of 160 abstracts of original research and reviews to the symposium.