Germplasm development
The project will draw upon germplasm developed at JIC and NIAB. A nested association mapping panel with Paragon (UK spring wheat) as the common parent has been established within the BBSRC WISP project. It comprises 9500 individuals derived from 95 founders. SNP based genetic maps have been produced for all. The majority of the founders (85) are landrace cultivars selected from the Watkins collection to represent maximum genotypic diversity. The remaining founders are modern elite varieties designed to sample global mega environments or lines that carry specific variation in target genes. Forty five of these biparental populations have been grown in WISP field trials for at least one season. The project will therefore draw on these populations (Table1).
NIAB is developing a large nested association mapping panel derived from 50 re-synthesised (Triticum durum x Aegilops tauschii) lines crossed to the spring wheat Paragon. Selected lines from BC1 families will be used in parallel UK and India field testing in Year 2 and 3. NIAB will also contribute segregants from the NIAB Multiparent Advanced Genetic InterCross (MAGIC) population created through the systematic inter-crossing of eight elite UK wheat varieties and is diverse and highly recombined. Although developed in the UK, it samples diversity for adaptive traits (both vernalisation and photoperiod response).