Bread Wheat Landrace Database

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Bread Wheat Constraint Survey

A survey to spatially identify environmental limitations to wheat production

Aim:

Identifying geographic regions where various wheat production limiting factors have occurred during the evolution of cultivated wheat and its relatives.

Background:

Traditional varieties (landraces) and non cultivated relatives of wheat have evolved in variable environments over the past ca. 7,000 years. The attributes (traits) of individual plant populations and/or landraces reflect, to a considerable extent, the environment in which they have evolved.

Hypothesis:

If we can identify geographical regions where specific production limiting environmental conditions have occurred (e.g. biotic and abiotic stresses) during the evolutionary processes, we can subsequently identify those geo-referenced gene bank accessions that have been subjected to the selection pressures associated with the various production constraints identified.

Method:

The Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS) has assembled a virtual collection of nearly 16,000 bread wheat landraces held by three gene banks (Australian Winter Cereals Collection, ICARDA Genetic Resources Unit and the N I Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry [VIR] in St Petersburg). All accessions have been geo-referenced.

Databases of the sites where local varieties and wild relatives of wheat have been collected are already available.

FIGS uses any available or generated environmental information (climate and edaphic) about a collection site, together with passport data, to anticipate the possibility of selection pressure for a specific trait to have occurred. The strategy enables scientists to �drill down� through layers of environmental information to identify the accessions more likely to possess genetic variation for a particular trait.

This figure kindly provided by
Dag Terje Filip Endresen,
Nordic Gene Bank,
Sweden.

This survey will become another layer of information in the FIGS database. It will capture the experience of wheat scientists regarding the presence (or absence) of selection pressures for about 150 biotic and abiotic traits that can restrict production in ADM1 regions, the first-order administrative divisions of countries (such as the states in Australia). ADM1 regions may not accurately reflect wheat production regions in countries; however when this information is combined with the other environmental data layers in FIGS the actual production areas will become obvious.

Product:

The information obtained through this survey will be loaded into the FIGS database and provide another layer of information to assist wheat scientists to more easily identify the germplasm most likely to contain genetic variation for the traits in which they are interested.

The FIGS system is freely available for use via the internet.

Bread wheat germplasm curators are invited to contribute collection site data for inclusion in the FIGS database.