Genomics for the understanding of plant developmental factors as contributors of Wheat Yield – WHEATGROWTH

Wheat is the crop most widely cultivated worldwide : 556 million tons of wheat are used for human food and animal feed. The production worldwide has not been increasing for ten years, while demand gets still more important. The program will investigate the influence of the vegetative and reproductive organ development on wheat Yield achievement as well as Genotype adaptation to environmental conditions. The studies will take into account the genetic factors and their interaction with the environment by doing multi-local field experimentations. The project is organised in three main workpackages:
- Genetic analysis of the various components of yield will be made through QTL study, using a specific wheat population, derived from five cultivated inbred lines. Some fine phenotypic scorings of the plant vegetative growth and spike's development will lead to a better genetic understanding of yield's components. In a second subproject, a cross between two parents very contrasted for spike and tillering structuration will be used for genetic studies. Thirdly, the influence of the Ppd photoperiod genes on the plant development and the achievement of yield potential will be studied.
- Candidate genes will be identified using the following methods: sequence data mining, gene mapping and collocation research.
- Some association studies will be achieved for a number of candidates and known genes (Ppd, Vrn, …). We will then be able to validate their involvement in some traits of interest, or to better characterize their allelic effects.
The deliverables expected from this project are (i) a better understanding of the genetic factors and their interactions which lead to the expression of a part of the yield potential, (ii) the identification of QTL and genes involved in the control of these traits and (iii) development of markers that will be helpful to better characterize the registered lines, and also helpful for breeding purposes,