Wheat in the Era of Genomics and Transgenics. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.86639
, Usman Babar, Usama Arshad, Muhammad T. Azhar, Rana M. Atif, Abdulaziz A. Alsahli, Ibrahim A. Alaraidh, Aysha Kiran, Iqrar A. Rana and Gyuhwa Chung . 2019
Wheat, as one of the most important cereal crops in the world and second
major caloric source in the world after rice, is the major staple food in South Asia
and many other countries of the world. Prior to onset of “Green Revolution,”
South Asian countries were facing the threat of severe famine. Green Revolution
wheat genotypes brought out these countries from the crisis they were facing
and has helped them to sustain their productions for more than half a century.
With the emergence of molecular biology and biotechnology, another window of
opportunity is opened to sustain wheat yields by using modern techniques of genes
identification and utilization. Through this chapter, we have tried to gather information
that was generated for wheat improvement in last 3 decades. These afforest
included the development of molecular markers, mapping of genes, sequencing of
markers genes, and their utilization through marker-assisted selection. The other
part recorded various efforts to genetically transform wheat for traits improvements
and/or to study their molecular control.
