CHARACTERIZATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF GENES FROM `MIRACLE WHEAT` INCREASING SPIKELET NUMBER PER SPIKE

Grains from wheat serves as a source of our daily calorie and protein sources. As the cultivated area worldwideapproaches a maximum plateau, grain yield increases become more important for worldwide food security. This isparticularly urgent; because in recent years there has been a stagnation in the rates of wheat yield increases obtainedin traditional breeding programs. One possible approach to complement the traditional wheat improvement programsis to engineer a more productive inflorescence architecture. `Miracle Wheat', which is a tetraploid natural mutantwith a drastically different spike architecture and, therefore, is a valuable material to identify novel genes controllingwheat spike development and architecture. The overall goal/objective of this project is, therefore, the identification,validation, and deployment of genes with a positive impact on total grain yield.In the two years of this fellowship, I will be able to complete the following three major tasks:1. Identify novel genes regulating spike branching in `Miracle Wheat' by performing a QTL mapping in a doublehaploid population fixed for the bht-A1 and bht-B1 mutations.2. Perform a high-resolution mapping using heterogeneous inbred families (HIF) segregating for the candidate generegions identified in objective 1.3. Introgress the bht-A1 and bht-B1 alleles into highly productive durum varieties and conduct field trial to see theireffect on grain yield and other agronomic traits.