8th INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE

uSINg mARkeR ASSISTed SeLeCTIoN IN A LoW BudgeT
WheAT BReedINg PRogRAm
M. Ciucă
National Agricultural Research and Development Institute Fundulea, 915200 ROMANIA
E-mail Address of presenting author: matilda72001@yahoo.co.uk
Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) has proved to be a very efficient method for increasing
genetic progress and efficiency of breeding programs. However, it is expensive and therefore
has been mainly used by large, high budget institutions. The paper will present the
approach followed by the wheat breeding program at the National Agricultural Research
and Development Institute Fundulea, Romania in an attempt to use limited available resources
for enhancing genetic progress by MAS.
Our approach has included:
Using available known markers for traits that are difficult or more expensive to select
for phenotypically. This is the case for:
- Introducing genes for Fusarium Head blight resistance from the totally not adapted
cultivar Sumai3 (mainly Qfhs.ndsu.3BS)
- Introducing the Bdv2/Bdv3 genes for resistance to barley yellow dwarf virus
Identifying new markers for important traits for which significant variation has been
detected in our breeding material, such as:
- Drought tolerance expressed as better membrane stability with localization on
chromosome 7A, identified in one of our recently released cultivar (Izvor)
- Fusarium Head blight resistance in a breeding line, not related with Sumai3
- Bunt resistance, having in view future pyramiding of resistance genes, for increased
durability of resistance in organic farming.
Detecting rye introgressions to wheat using rye specific SSR markers, as a step in
using lines derived from Triticale x Wheat crosses for increasing genetic diversity of
breeding material.
Focusing marker work on specific small special programs and on specific generations:
- Selecting parents for inclusion in the crossing block
- Selecting haploid plants before doubling of chromosome number, in special accelerated
programs.
- Characterization of promising lines, already selected phenotypically.
Molecular characterization by CIMMYT of our lines submitted for international testing
has been of much help for confirming our previous results and for opening possible new
directions in our MAS work.
We plan to extend our work by including other traits of interest and by trying simultaneous
selection for more than one marker, for combining more traits of interest.
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