Introgression of Recombinant 1RS WR .1BL Translocation and Rust Resistance Genes in Bread Wheat cv. HD2967 Through Marker-Assisted Selection

Bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major cereal crops utilized worldwide for bread making. The presence of secalin locus on 1RS leads to the sticky dough and poor bread-making quality of wheat. In the present study, two donor parents, one with distal rye chromatin (1RS44:38) and another with distal wheat chromatin (Pavon MA1) without secalin, and one recipient elite wheat cultivar HD2967 were used. In 1RS44:38, the distal rye region has the Pm8 gene to which the QTL for superior root traits is linked, while in Pavon MA1 with Glu-B3/Gli-B1 , the Pm8 gene was found to be absent. This distal rye region having root trait QTL was introgressed into the HD2967 derivatives using marker-assisted backcross selection. The derivatives with distal rye region introgression had higher root biomass, drought resistance, and 6–8% higher yield than the recipient parent cultivar. HD2967 is highly susceptible to yellow rust. Therefore, in the second backcross, the rust-resistant version of HD2967 ( Lr57 + Yr40 ) was used to introgress rust resistance in the derivatives. Background selection was done using polymorphic wheat anchored SSR markers of A, B, and D genomes of wheat which led to the selection of derivatives with > 90% background of the recipient cultivar. The significant findings in this study include higher root biomass, improved yield, rust resistance in the derivatives, and retaining the alleles of Glu-B3 / Gli-B1 along with Pm8 and the absence of secalin.