8th INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE

evaluation under farmers’ conditions. Who can say that among the eliminated genotypes,
there were not ones suitable in farmers’ field? The ones that the poor farmers are looking
for their unpredictable heterogeneous conditions. Evaluation of big number of genotypes on
farmers’ field is a difficult task but the possible one and it would be easier one also if farmers
participate in breeding program. One easy and effective breeding approach is evolutionary
plant breeding (EPB) which leads farmers in low-input and organic systems to the genotypes
adapted to their own specific conditions. In cereal breeding program in Dryland Agricultural
Research Sub-Institute we conduct conventional plant breeding and cross breeding program.
Annually a relatively large number of genotypes will be introduced to this program and hybridization
will be done among numbers of genotypes. Each year a part of evaluating genotypes’
seeds keep in seed store as back up and next year the store would be cleaned and these
seeds will be sold as mixed grains to market. We use modified bulk to manage segregating
population and after selecting some spikes from each population for next generation, the rest
part of plots would be harvested all to gather and would be sold to market. We believe that
this valuable mixed germplasms are the one can help reviving the lost crop biodiversity in
farmers’ field in unpredictable rainfed condition in Iran. Since 2009-2010, we started utilizing
these germplasms of bread and durum wheats and some mixed seeds of the germplasm
distributed to farmers to plant in their field conditions. These farmers have been asked to
grow these mixtures of seeds each year in the same conditions. Every year, or at longer intervals,
and as the population evolves and new, better adapted recombinants appear, artificial
selection can be applied to extract individual components or sub populations. These can be
used by farmers in their commercial farms, and breeder can select individual plant out of
that for next cross breeding program or multiplication as pure individual genotypes while
the original population continues to evolve. These genotypes can be maintained in gene bank
also and remixed in the case of losing the final evolved mixtures. Farmers have been asked
to grow and harvest this material year after year in the same condition in which they will
grow the future cultivars.
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