Using Wild Relatives to Increase Genetic Variation in Monocot Grass Species

In many cultivated crop species there is limited genetic variation available for the development of new higher yielding varieties adapted to climate change and sustainable farming practises. The distant relatives of crop species provide a vast and largely untapped reservoir of genetic variation for a wide range of agronomically important traits that can be exploited by breeders for crop improvement.

The transfer of the entire genome of Festuca pratensis into Lolium perennein overlapping chromosome segments identified 133 introgressions characterised via 131 simple sequence repeats and 1612 SNPs anchored to the rice genome. Analyses comparing recombination frequency and gene distribution indicated that a large proportion of the genes are located in the proximal regions of the chromosomes which undergo low/very low frequencies of recombination.

The techniques and strategy employed on the Lolium/Festuca introgression programme are now being used to transfer genetic variation to wheat from its wild relatives. The BBSRC funded programme is in the process of developing 1) large numbers of wheat/wild relative hybrids, produced by crossing wheat with its distant relatives and 2) a series of lines of wheat carrying single chromosome segments derived from a range of wild species.

This material will be screened for a wide range of traits including tolerance to heat, drought and alkaline soils and salt, resistance to disease, increased photosynthetic capacity/increased biomass production and nitrogen use efficiency at sites in the UK, Australia and India.