For more than a century, wheat breeders have deployed genetic diversity from around the globe to produce cultivars adapted to diverse Australian growing conditions. Introgression, recombination and selection over many generations has produced a rich genomic resource which has now been curated for research. The OzWheat Panel takes advantage of a large and complex pedigree as well as highly saturated marker density, to provide a platform for gene and marker discovery. A set of 280 cultivars representing the flow of important alleles throughout the history of the Australian grains industry has been subject to 90K SNP analysis, multi-environment transcriptome sequencing and adaptive trait measures. Using examples of important developmental traits, we demonstrate the application of association genetics and machine learning to reveal how genes, through interactions with each other and the environment, drive trait variation and overall crop performance. Instantaneous development and validation of genetic markers is also described, ensuring relevant research outcomes for breeding.