abstract
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Wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) harbors rich genetic variation for both quantitative and qualitative traits, and the ‘‘wild’’ genes interact with other genes in a non-additive way in genetic background of the common wheat. The genetic effects on grain yield are presumably enhanced when introgression of genes from ‘‘wild’’ genome regions into a ‘‘domesticated’’ genotype. Wild emmer wheat has been used for breaking the bottleneck of yield improvement in common wheat breeding program in China. Using elite common wheat cultivars as recurrent parents, wild emmer wheat genome fragments introgression lines were developed. These introgression lines were selected to make further crosses with Chinese commercial wheat cultivars to develop novel high yielding potential pre-breeding lines by pyramiding multiple disease resistance genes. An elite new pre-breeding line “ZK331” with more tillering capacity, sound adult plant resistance (APR) for rusts and powdery mildew, heat stress tolerance, and high general combining ability (GCA) when crossing with commercial wheat cultivars adapt to the Huang-Huai winter wheat region, the main wheat production area of China. “ZK331” was used to make crosses with many adapted common wheat lines or cultivars, e.g., GY 11069, Henong 7069, Zhengfeng 00530, Liangxing 99, and Zhongyu 04zhong36, to develop super lines cultivars that has yield increasing potential of 11.25-18.50% in two years field plots evaluations in comparison with the locally adapted leading wheat varieties, Liangxing 99 and Jimai 22. Those results demonstrated the practical values of unexplored wild emmer wheat genetic variations in modern wheat breeding to break the high yield bottlenecks due to very narrow genetic diversity in elite wheat cultivars.