Genetic research improving wheat crop

Stillwater, Okla.-- Oklahoma researchers say genetic research is paving the way for major breakthroughs in wheat improvement in the southern Great Plains.

Liuling Yan and colleagues in Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources have found a genome region that has a significant effect on the development process of winter wheat, OSU said Friday in a release.

The researchers developed a DNA marker for the genomic region to select lines for biomass production that can be utilized as forage or as a supplemental biofuel feedstock.

"This exciting find was achieved based on the genetic segregation of flowering time in a population generated from a cross between two winter cultivars, Jagger -- a typical early flowering wheat variety -- and 2174, a late-flowering wheat variety," said David R. Porter, head of OSU's department of plant and soil sciences.

The wheat genome contains 16 billion base pairs, five times the size of the human genome and approximately 120 times the genome size of Arabidopsis -- the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and a baseline model used for studying plant biology.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.