Wheat plays a vital role in global food security, serving as a staple food crop worldwide. However, challenges like climate change and growing populations demand innovative solutions to enhance its productivity. Wild relatives, such as Aegilops species, represent a largely untapped reservoir of genetic diversity that could benefit wheat’s adaptation and resilience.

However, understanding and exploiting this genetic diversity is challenging partly due to our limited knowledge of Aegilops genomes and the challenges associated with transferring beneficial traits free of the deleterious ones. Here, we sequenced the genomes of four diploid and 14 polyploid Aegilops species using advanced technologies, such as Oxford Nanopore, Illumina, PacBio, and Hi-C. This work complements our other assemblies of the remaining diploid species, with the overarching goal of developing a publicly available database of reference genomes of all Aegilops species.

High-quality genome assemblies with N50 values ranging from 116 Mb to 1.9 Gb and BUSCO scores of 95.8-99.1 were produced for all 18 genomes. These assemblies will be analyzed to identify structural variations and transposable elements, shedding light on the evolution of the Aegilops genus across ploidy levels. This comprehensive collection of Aegilops assemblies and annotations represents a valuable resource for wheat improvement.

Novel gene isolation and genome editing strategies will likely play key roles in the identification and the rapid transfer of useful genetics from Aegilops to Triticum species with the ultimate goal of enhancing the resilience and productivity of wheat, particularly in the face of environmental challenges.