A First Consensus Genetic Map of Intermediate Wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium) has Broad Implications for Wheat Improvement and the Contemporary Domestication of a Perennial Cereal Crop

Contemporary agricultural production, particularly of staple grains, relies on the cultivation of annual species.  Though highly productive through domestication, modern breeding, and advanced agronomic practices, the cultivation of annual plants limits the conservation of natural resources such as soils and nutrients.  Alternatively, the cultivation of perennial species improved through targeted domestication and selection can facilitate sustainable natural systems agriculture.  Thinopyrum intermedium, intermediate wheatgrass, was selected for domestication because of its relatively large seeds and high yield.  Recently, its future as an economically viable crop has become more plausible with the discovery of a high yielding, non-shattering plant with free threshing seed.  Genetic markers have been developed from three populations of intermediate wheatgrass and utilized for the construction of a consensus genetic map. 

These resources have been used to elucidate the genetic architecture underlying important domestication-related traits, including seed size, yield, free threshing and non-shattering, and to investigate colinearity with barley.  Additionally, the primary wheat domestication gene, Q, has been cloned in intermediate wheatgrass and the population genotyped to determine if any of the Q alleles is associated with the free threshing and non-shattering phenotypes.