Synthetic wheat; a new hope for the hungry world

Abstract

Wheat is an important staple food and most widely grown cereal of the world. The dependence of large population on this food crop and increasing population of the world requires much more wheat to be produced. Efforts were made to increase wheat productivity and a remarkable success named “Green Revolution” boosted the wheat productivity in 1960s. However, by the course of time, no further significant improvement was noted. Through successive struggles, scientists developed synthetic wheat, derived from cross between Triticum turgidum L. and Aegilops tauschii (ancestors of bread wheat; Triticum aestivum). These synthetic wheat cultivars proved a great source of unexplored genetic variability and possessed improved traits like high yield, tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses etc. Currently, new synthetic wheat has been developed, named as “super wheat” having at least 30 % higher yield than the existing wheat cultivars. This article summarizes the efforts made and goals achieved in the field of wheat breeding with special reference to synthetic wheat.