“The wheat blueprint will enable us to decipher the genetic basis of important traits in wheat, such as genes responsible for resistance to fungal diseases and pests. That is the disruptive part. What took years to do before can now be done in a matter of a few weeks,” said Pozniak, a wheat breeder at the Crop Development Centre (CDC) in the U of S College of Agriculture and Bioresources.

“From a breeding perspective, the blueprint will enable us to develop DNA markers for breeding. These markers will allow us to improve the efficiency of selecting important traits, which will ultimately help produce better wheat varieties over the long term,” Pozniak said.

The next step for the U of S team will be to lead the 10+ Wheat Genome Project—a larger-scale international initiative to sequence more than 10 cultivated wheat varieties from the main growing areas across the globe.

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