Multiple Synthetic Derivatives to Utilize QTLs of Aegilops tauschii for Wheat Breeding

Aegilops tauschii is regarded as a promising genetic resource for wheat breeding. However, its morphological and physiological characters concerning to drought tolerance are not expressed well in the synthetic wheat (amphidiploid between durum wheat and Ae. tauschii) though it has the same genomes as common wheat (Sohail et al. 2011). Furthermore, evaluation of quantitative characters of synthetic wheat is not very realistic because its nature differs largely form that of practical common wheat cultivars. Here, I propose ‘Multiple Synthetic Derivative (MSD)’ population as a resource for wheat breeding. This population includes a large variation of Ae. tauschii in the a regular genetic background of practical cultivars, and thus it will enhance the use of QTLs of Ae. tauschii genome for wheat breeding.