Acknowledgement
This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ015964032022)" Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea
This study is to develop new wheat breeding material through wide hybridization with wild species harboring useful characteristics such as salt, heat, and drought tolerance. Leymus mollis, wild rye was used to improve wheat genetic quality. L. mollis, is a perennial plant harboring tolerance against salt, heat, and drought because L. mollis distributes on the seaside. The F1 hybrids were produced by crossing between common wheat (Triticum aestivum L., Chinese Spring) and L. mollis. Genomic in situ hybridization revealed that the F1 hybrids have L. mollis genome. For the evaluation of salt and drought tolerance, seeds from the F2 were used. Under 2% NaCl solution, the F3 wheat-Leymus addition plants with salt tolerance showed more tillering and longer roots than other F3 plants without salt tolerance. Also, the F3 plants with salt tolerance showed better shallow-rooted than other F3 plants without salt tolerance. Finally, the F3 plants with salt tolerance made seed-setting under 2% NaCl condition, but other F3 plants without salt tolerance were not. Under drought conditions, the F3 plants with drought tolerance showed longer culm and spike length than other F3 plants without drought tolerance and even those of Chinese Spring under well-water conditions. We evaluated and selected the F3 plants with salt or drought tolerance for generation advancement.
This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ015964032022)" Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea