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Wheat Diversity

 

Contacts: Jon White
                   Professor Wayne Powell


The Wheat Diversity project aims to investigate the following questions;

1. Is there evidence to support the hypothesis that public funded wheat breeding (as in the USA) leads to a reduction in genetic diversity compared to a commercially driven free-market (as in the UK)?

2. Has there been a change in the genetic diversity (quantified by SSR genotyping) of wheat varieties over time in the USA, or in the UK, during the period 1930 to 2004? 3. How does the genetic diversity in the two variety populations compare.

4. Has the genetic distance between the US variety set and the UK variety set increased over time

5. Do macro-trends in national wheat yields correlate with changes in genetic diversity or distance

A set of varieties has been assembled that represents the diversity in the US and UK in the period of interest. This consists of 96 US varieties and 96 UK varieties from all the decades in this timeframe and includes material from a range of breeders, covering milling, biscuit and feed wheats where varieties are so classified. Genotyping of this wheat material is underway using molecular markers including SSRs.