About this Research Topic
Triticeae, an important tribe in the grass family Poaceae, includes several staple food crops, such as wheat, barley, rye and triticale. These crops, together with many other Triticeae grasses, are also commonly used as forage crops in many parts of the world. Although plant breeding has improved the performance of these crops steadily, continued improvement is becoming more challenging due to increasing pressure from biotic and abiotic stresses as a result of climate change.
Further advancing structural and functional genomics of the Triticeae crops is essential for accelerating cycles of crop improvement and increasing genetic gain of breeding selection. Marker-assisted selection has proven to be useful for tracking alleles of major genes of many traits. More recently, genomic selection has also shown potential for simplifying the selection of genome-wide minor alleles by modeling with or without pre-knowledge of the trait targets. However, it has been noted that almost all Triticeae breeding programs still rely largely on conventional breeding selection made from replicated, time-consuming field trials.
With the recent advancements on reference sequences of the major Triticeae species and high-throughput genotyping platforms, we envision that more feasible genomic tools could be developed rapidly and more germplasm resources could be characterized precisely, thus, increasing genetic gain during Triticeae improvement. Therefore, this Research Topic aims to promote genomics-enabled Triticeae improvement by collecting original research and (mini) review articles in wheat (and its progenitor relatives), barley, rye, triticale, etc., using genomics in, but not limited to, the following areas:
• Pre-breeding and germplasm characterization;
• New molecular tools and methods for next generation breeding;
• Harnessing rare allelic variations that are not being explored;
• QTL mapping, GWAS and candidate gene characterization;
• Marker-assisted selection, predication modeling and genomic selection;
• Evidence of population drift due to directed selection, historical fingerprints of crop improvement, selection sweeps or signatures;
• Review and mini review article(s) involving multiple of the above topics (preferably across the major Triticeae species).
Further advancing structural and functional genomics of the Triticeae crops is essential for accelerating cycles of crop improvement and increasing genetic gain of breeding selection. Marker-assisted selection has proven to be useful for tracking alleles of major genes of many traits. More recently, genomic selection has also shown potential for simplifying the selection of genome-wide minor alleles by modeling with or without pre-knowledge of the trait targets. However, it has been noted that almost all Triticeae breeding programs still rely largely on conventional breeding selection made from replicated, time-consuming field trials.
With the recent advancements on reference sequences of the major Triticeae species and high-throughput genotyping platforms, we envision that more feasible genomic tools could be developed rapidly and more germplasm resources could be characterized precisely, thus, increasing genetic gain during Triticeae improvement. Therefore, this Research Topic aims to promote genomics-enabled Triticeae improvement by collecting original research and (mini) review articles in wheat (and its progenitor relatives), barley, rye, triticale, etc., using genomics in, but not limited to, the following areas:
• Pre-breeding and germplasm characterization;
• New molecular tools and methods for next generation breeding;
• Harnessing rare allelic variations that are not being explored;
• QTL mapping, GWAS and candidate gene characterization;
• Marker-assisted selection, predication modeling and genomic selection;
• Evidence of population drift due to directed selection, historical fingerprints of crop improvement, selection sweeps or signatures;
• Review and mini review article(s) involving multiple of the above topics (preferably across the major Triticeae species).
Keywords: Triticeae, cereals, genomics, plant breeding
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