Effective use of various genetic resources – one of the most important scientific directions both in the world and Russia to address productivity gains, resistance to negative abiotic and biotic environmental factors and grain quality of wheat. Omsk SAU in cooperation with CIMMYT carried out phenotyping of diverse set of spring wheat germplasm for GenomeWide Association Mapping (GWAM) in 2017–2018. The accessions were divided into four groups: 1 – CIMMYT synthetic wheat lines with Ae. tauschii genome (39 accessions); 2 – synthetic lines from Kyoto University (10 accessions); 3 – spring bread wheat varieties from the USA and Canada (15); 4 – wheat varieties from Russia/Kazakhstan (75). Both groups of synthetics were inferior on emergence, the number of plants per unit area, and the number of productive tillers. According to the rate of plant development the most early maturing were varieties from USA and Canada with growing season of 90 days in 2017 and 83 days in 2018. Japanese synthetics, medium, and late maturing synthetics from CIMMYT were outstanding for resistance to powdery mildew. The varieties from USA/Canada, Japanese synthetics, and late maturing CIMMYT,s synthetics were highly resistant to leaf and stem rust. The varieties of the USA/Canada displayed the dwarfism, while the other groups had medium and high plant height. The highest yield was observed in the medium and late maturing groups of varieties from Russia and Kazakhstan in both years of research. Their yield was double compared to CIMMYT,s synthetics, 3-4 times compared to Japanese synthetics and exceeded varieties from USA/Canada by 20–40%. The highest yielding varieties were: Prevail, RBOT, and synthetic lines №8 Ukr-Od 1530.94 / Ae.sq.(392), № 61 Pandur / Ae.sq.(409), which are not inferior to material from Russia/Kazakhstan, and the spike sizes even surpassed them. Japanese synthetics, CIMMYT synthetics and varieties of USA/Canada had advantage for protein and gluten content. Interesting data were obtained on parameters of the root system. Later maturing forms had more developed root system in both years of research, the dwarf varieties of the USA/Canada substantially conceded in all root traits to taller synthetics and material from Russia/Kazakhstan. For majority of root parameters, synthetics surpassed the check and material from Russia/Kazakhstan for 5–20%. Thus, the studied accessions represent a valuable initial material for the extension of genetic diversity in wheat breeding.

Acknowledgement. The present research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (project No. 16-16-10005).