Research Project: Genetic Improvement of Biotic and Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Nutritional Quality in Hard Winter Wheat

Location: Hard Winter Wheat Genetics Research

2022 Annual Report

Objectives
OBJECTIVE 1: Strategically characterize wheat genetic resources for priority traits including resistance to damaging fungal pathogens (stripe rust, leaf rust, stem rust, Fusarium head scab), resistance to viruses, resistance to Hessian fly, tolerance to heat and drought stress, and nutritional quality. Subobjective 1A: Characterize wheat genetic resources for resistance to stripe rust, leaf rust, and stem rust. Subobjective 1B: Characterize wheat genetic resources for resistance to Fusarium head blight. Subobjective 1C: Characterize wheat genetic resources for resistance to Wheat streak mosaic. Subobjective 1D: Characterize wheat genetic resources for resistance to Hessian Fly. Subobjective 1E: Characterize wheat genetic resources for improved nutritional quality traits. OBJECTIVE 2: Efficiently and effectively incorporate genetic traits into high yielding winter wheat germplasm, and distribute germplasm to the breeding community. Subobjective 2A: Incorporate resistance to stripe rust, leaf rust, and stem rust. Subobjective 2B: Incorporate resistance to Fusarium head blight. Subobjective 2C: Incorporate resistance to Wheat streak mosaic. Subobjective 2D: Incorporate resistance to Hessian Fly. Subobjective 2E: Incorporate tolerance to heat and drought stress. Subobjective 2F: Incorporated improved nutritional quality traits. OBJECTIVE 3: Develop efficient molecular marker technologies for genetic traits and transfer these technologies to the breeding community. Subobjective 3A: Develop new trait-specific SNP markers for important genes. Subobjective 3B: Develop new genome-wide multiplexed amplicon sequencing assay and imputation protocols for important genes. Subobjective 3C: Transfer genotyping data and information to the breeding community. OBJECTIVE 4: Characterize molecular foundations of critical plant-microbe and plant-insect interactions toward development of effective and durable host plant resistance. Subobjective 4A: Characterize molecular foundations of virulence and resistance for Hessian fly. Subobjective 4B: Characterize molecular foundations of virulence and resistance for leaf rust.

Approach
Production of hard winter wheat is limited by recurring intractable problems including diseases, insects, heat, and drought stress. Both nutrient deficiencies and antinutrient excesses affect nutritional quality of wheat products. Our first objective is to identify germplasm with improved resistance to leaf rust, yellow rust, stem rust, Hessian fly, Fusarium head blight, and viruses; improved tolerance to heat and drought stress; as well as increased iron and zinc and lower phytate and cadmium concentrations. The second objective is to transfer these traits into adapted backgrounds and release new germplasm for use as parents in cultivar development. Innovative male-sterile approaches will be used to efficiently construct disease resistance gene pyramids in adapted backgrounds and to isolate coupling-phase recombinants. We will launch a novel full-season wheat recurrent selection project to extend floral initiation and grain filling while maintaining test weight and yield under heat stress. The third objective is to develop more efficient wheat breeding techniques using high-throughput genotyping technologies and large-scale data mining techniques. New allele-specific PCR assays, multiplexed amplicon sequencing assays, and genomic databases will be developed and used to characterize breeding material for the presence of genes of interest. Phenotype and genotype data will be distributed to the breeding community through USDA-supported databases. The fourth objective is to characterize the molecular basis for interaction between wheat plants and leaf rust or Hessian fly. Greater understanding of avirulence effectors in the Hessian fly and the leaf rust pathogen may lead to better strategies for durable resistance.

Progress Report
Objective 1: Strategically characterize wheat genetic resources for priority traits including resistance to damaging fungal pathogens (stripe rust, leaf rust, stem rust, Fusarium head blight), resistance to viruses, resistance to Hessian fly, tolerance to heat and drought stress, and nutritional quality. Researchers at Manhattan, Kansas, screened approximately 4,700 wheat breeding lines for field resistance to stripe rust at Rossville, Kansas. The test included entries from the regional nurseries, gene mapping populations, and elite breeding lines from 14 public and private breeding programs. Approximately 930 public and private breeding lines were screened for stem rust resistance. Due to unusual weather, stripe rust and stem rust disease severities were low, and relatively few resistance ratings could be obtained. Approximately 2,000 ARS breeding lines were screened for leaf rust resistance at Castroville, Texas and 1300 were screened at Manhattan, Kansas. Hessian fly resistance of over 4,500 wheat lines from regional breeders and geneticists was evaluated. ARS scientists collaborated with scientists at Kansas State University to evaluate remote sensing technology for assessing Hessian fly infestation in a field trial with caged flies applied to resistant and susceptible cultivars at varying densities and infestation timings. Spring wheat introgression lines with chromosome fragments from Amblyopyrum muticum, Triticum urartu, and Triticum timopheevii were screened for leaf, stem, and stripe rust resistance. ARS wheat germplasm under development was characterized for resistance to stripe rust, leaf rust, stem rust, Fusarium head blight, and viruses. Researchers screened nearly 1,200 ARS breeding lines for resistance to wheat mosaic virus (Dighton, Kansas). In addition, we provided wheat mosaic virus ratings on nearly 500 wheat lines from breeders and geneticists in the region. Over 380 ARS breeding lines in yield testing were evaluated for resistance to Fusarium head blight, and 280 lines for a winter wheat Fusarium head blight association mapping project and 500 near-isogenic lines for mapping projects were evaluated in replicated tests. Approximately 1,200 ARS breeding lines in yield testing were evaluated for resistance to the North American race of stem rust, named QFCSC, in Manhattan, Kansas, and resistance to stripe rust (Rossville, Kansas) and leaf rust (Castroville, Texas, and Manhattan, Kansas). ARS breeding germplasm from early generation segregating populations was selected in disease nurseries at these locations. In total, over 14,000 rows were evaluated for breeding selection in ARS germplasm. Objective 2: Incorporate genetic traits into high-yielding winter wheat germplasm and distribute to the breeding community. Phenotypic and genotypic selections continued toward stacking durable, slow rusting resistance genes from cultivars ‘Kingbird’ and ‘Roelfs F2007’. Wheat lines have been obtained that are true breeding for the combination of resistance genes Sr2, S9b, Sr12, Lr34, Lr46, Lr68, and Lr77. We advanced four mapping populations designed to identify modifiers of the pseudo-black chaff trait associated with the stem rust resistance gene Sr2 to the F5 generation. Breeding germplasm selected for the combination of stripe rust resistance genes Yr5 and Yr15 continued to demonstrate strong stripe rust resistance and yield performance in field experiments. Advanced selections were tested in statewide yield trials in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska in cooperation with public breeding programs. Breeding germplasm with stripe rust resistance genes Yr40, Yr47, Yr51, Yr57, Yr63 and leaf rust resistance genes Lr42 and Lr19 were evaluated in yield testing. Introgression lines with Amblyopyrum muticum, Triticum urartu, and Triticum timopheevii also are being backcrossed into three adapted hard winter wheat backgrounds, and half of the lines are at BC2F1 stage. Three recombinant winter wheat lines with Sr2 in coupling with the Fusarium head blight resistance gene Fhb1 were evaluated for Fusarium head blight resistance and stem rust resistance in field nurseries, and yield was evaluated in replicated trials. Development of wheat germplasm with pyramids of three major stem rust genes, Sr22, Sr26, and Sr35 continued. Breeding lines with combinations of these genes in three commercial wheat genetic backgrounds were included in yield tests in multiple Kansas environments, and partners also tested lines in Oklahoma and Nebraska environments. ARS researchers expanded on the Sr22, Sr26, and Sr35 gene pyramid by backcrossing resistance genes Sr50 and SrTA10187 into the Sr22+Sr26+Sr35 gene pyramid germplasm. Research continued on the development of gene pyramids for Fusarium head blight resistance. Fhb1, two resistance loci on chromosome 5A from GP-80, and a resistance locus on chromosome 2DL from Ji5625 were combined in Everest and Overland backgrounds. Pyramids of Fusarium head blight resistance traits were evaluated in yield trials. We evaluated winter wheat germplasm derived from crosses with winter synthetic hexaploid wheats that confer resistance to wheat streak mosaic virus. Field evaluation under severe virus infection demonstrated limited resistance in this breeding germplasm. Researchers characterized the complex of viruses present in this western Kansas field trial using next generation sequencing and identified wheat streak mosaic virus, Triticum mosaic virus, and a wide array of other viruses. Breeding germplasm derived from crosses to durum landraces with high-temperature Hessian fly resistance was evaluated in replicated, multi-location yield trials. Seed increase of 1168 F5-derived introgression lines of T. dicoccoides in hard winter wheat backgrounds was conducted in Yuma, Arizona, to provide seed for subsequent experiments. Grain for end-use quality evaluation was produced from 97 F3-derived T. dicoccoides introgression lines grown in replicated field experiments in Colby, Hays, Hutchinson and Manhattan, Kansas. Low phytate breeding lines were evaluated in replicated yield trials. Scientists planted a total of 8,267 yield trial plots in support of the breeding and research efforts of the research unit. Researchers are working toward improving the utility of the new Fhb7 gene for Fusarium head blight resistance. This gene was transferred to wheat from a wheatgrass species as an alien translocation and, unfortunately, the resistance is associated with a gene that confers high yellow flour pigment, which is unacceptable in commercial milling and baking. Because both Fhb7 and the yellow pigment gene are carried on the introgression from wheatgrass, the linkage cannot be broken by breeding. Therefore, we obtained a chemically induced mutant population of Fhb7 wheat (2000 mutant lines) from an ARS researcher in Fargo, North Dakota, and advanced the population by two generations to increase its homozygosity. Seed harvested from the population will be evaluated for flour color to identify white flour mutants that will be useful for breeding. Objective 3: Develop efficient marker technologies for genetic traits. Scientists at Manhattan, Kansas, have advanced the technical method of exome capture as a tool for genome-wide genotyping. This method focuses the collection of sequence information on the coding regions of the wheat genome, which is very large due to a high proportion (~90%) of repetitive, non-coding sequence. We collected exome capture sequence information from 280 wheat lines and identified nearly 600,000 sequence variants with a low frequency of missing data. The Hard Winter Wheat Practical Haplotype Graph, developed from exome capture data, is now being used to impute high density sequence variants from the lower density genotyping methods, MRAseq and GBS. The laboratory has evaluated more than 4,000 wheat samples from 11 research and breeding programs for molecular markers this year. More than 350 million genome-wide and 200,000 sequence-specific data points were generated for wheat geneticists and breeders. The cooperative hard winter wheat Southern Regional Performance Nursery, Northern Regional Performance Nurseries, and Regional Germplasm Observation Nursery were characterized with more than 90 sequence-specific markers linked to the important agronomic traits. The genotypic data were used in conjunction with phenotypic data for characterizing and selecting breeding lines with desired combinations of agronomic and pest resistance traits. Objective 4: Characterize molecular foundations of critical plant-microbe and plant-insect interactions. Scientists sequenced genes for putative effector proteins from Hessian fly, barley midge, and oat midge. Transgenic wheat lines with selected Hessian fly effectors have been generated and are under propagation and characterization. We used bulked RNAseq analysis to map causal mutations for resistance to leaf rust to three regions of the wheat genome in wheat mutant lines 1995 and 2048. Mapping populations with mutant lines 1995, 2948 and 2348 were advanced to the F4 for genetic mapping. A telomere-to-telomere genome of the leaf rust pathogen Puccinia triticina race BBBD was assembled. The new genome assembly has the expected two nuclei, and each has 18 chromosomes and represents contiguous sequence, or contigs, that represents the fungal chromosomes and which nucleus the chromosomes are assigned to. Six genomes of P. triticina races were sequenced and assembled. These races represent new lineages found in the North American field population of leaf rust.

Accomplishments
1. A novel gene editing system for validating wheat Fusarium head blight resistance gene function. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating disease in wheat that reduces grain yield and quality. Infected grain has reduced marketability due to mycotoxin contamination. FHB-related losses to farmers and food processors are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Gene editing can provide an effective tool to create new sources of resistance. However, gene editing uses gene transformation to deliver CRISPR/Cas9 and guide RNA into wheat plants. This process is successful in only a few cultivars due to low transformation rates in most wheat cultivars. ARS researchers in Manhattan, Kansas, developed and optimized a new Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV)-mediated guide RNA delivery system to produce transgene-free mutant plants. A major FHB-susceptibility gene, TaHRC, was successfully edited in two FHB-susceptible wheat cultivars. The BSMV-mediated, gene edited trait was heritable in different wheat genetic backgrounds. This gene editing system can be used to create novel mutations for a wide array of applications in wheat breeding, including improving resistance to Fusarium head blight.

2. Oligogenic resistance to stripe rust. Stripe rust has become the most serious yield constraint of winter wheat on the Great Plains due to new, aggressive races of the pathogen. Averaged over the last ten years, Kansas winter wheat yield loss was 5.1%. Few resistant cultivars are available. Some cultivars, however, have an intermediate level of field resistance. ARS researchers in Manhattan, Kansas, working together with ARS researchers in Pullman, Washington, identified the genomic regions of two such cultivars, ‘Overley’ and ‘Overland’ that, together, can provide useful resistance to stripe rust. Breeder-friendly genetic markers were developed to assist breeders in maintaining the four modest-effect resistance regions as they also incorporate new sources of resistance in breeding. This oligogenic breeding strategy will help to ensure the continued effectiveness of new resistance genes against the stripe rust pathogen. Wheat cultivars with durable stripe rust resistance benefit producers by increasing yield and reducing fungicide costs.

3. A novel and effective source of Fusarium head blight resistance was identified. Fusarium head blight (FHB) causes significant reductions in grain yield and quality worldwide. To identify new sources of FHB resistance, ARS researchers in Manhattan, Kansas, identified a Chinese wheat cultivar, ‘Ji5265,’ with highly effective FHB resistance. This resistance was localized to a single genetic region, named QFhb-2DL, on the long arm of chromosome 2D. Two breeder-friendly DNA markers were developed and validated to be diagnostic for QFhb-2DL in a collection of 2,065 wheat lines. QFhb-2DL is a novel, valuable source of FHB resistance, and the two markers can be used for marker-assisted selection of resistant wheats in breeding. New cultivars with FHB resistance will benefit producers by increasing yield and reducing fungicide costs, will benefit the food processing industry by reducing the mycotoxin incidence and severity in the wheat crop, and will benefit consumers with increased food safety due to reduced mycotoxin in wheat food products.

4. Fhb1 interacts with TaCAXIP4 to facilitate the Fusarium pathogen spread within a wheat spike. Frequent and severe Fusarium head blight (FHB) epidemics of wheat threaten global food security and food safety. Fhb1 is among the few resistance genes that are effective against FHB. ARS researchers in Manhattan, Kansas, previously demonstrated that the ancestral allele of Fhb1 is, in fact, a susceptibility gene, and that resistance is achieved by mutations in Fhb1 that knock-out the ancestral gene function. We now have identified the TaCAXIP4 protein as an Fhb1-interacting protein, and we propose that Fhb1 may use TaCAXIP4 to suppress calcium-mediated plant immune responses, which facilitates the pathogen spread within a wheat spike. This work provides important insight into molecular mechanisms of Fhb1 in regulating resistance and susceptibility in wheat. This foundational understanding will strengthen efforts to develop new strategies for wheat resistance to FHB, which will provide new tools to breeders working to develop wheat cultivars with FHB resistance. New cultivars with FHB resistance will benefit producers by increasing yield and reducing fungicide costs, will benefit the food processing industry by reducing the mycotoxin incidence and severity in the wheat crop, and will benefit consumers with increased food safety due to reduced mycotoxin in wheat food products.

5. Genetic toolset for breeding with wheat wild relatives. Wheat’s wild relatives represent a valuable pool of new genes for breeding improved wheat cultivars, but significant genome differences in the wild relatives make it difficult to successfully cross-pollinate with wheat. It also is difficult to identify the progeny from these pollinations that have genetic material from the wild species. ARS scientists at Manhattan, Kansas, collaborated in an international effort to use a new genome sequencing technology to sequence the genome of the wheat relative Amblyopyrum muticum. A new computer analysis pipeline was developed to compare this genome with wheat to find useful differences. Single nucleotide changes specific to Am. muticum were found, and polymerase chain reaction assays were developed for 335 new genetic markers, which were added to a previous collection of markers. With the newly completed set, it is now possible to not only identify large fragments of the Am. muticum genome in wheat, but also to find smaller fragments that cannot be identified through classical chromosome staining. This new pipeline will streamline moving genes from wild relatives into wheat and thus opens up new sources of important traits to breeding. The set of markers developed will benefit breeders integrating genetics from wheat wild relatives by both expediting and improving the accuracy of their breeding efforts to develop wheat cultivars for farmers.

6. Cloning an effective leaf rust resistance gene, Lr42. Wheat varieties resistant to leaf rust are the preferred strategy for managing this economically important disease. Unfortunately, the leaf rust pathogen rapidly overcomes new resistance genes, often within a few years of their use in commercial varieties. One of the ancestral species of wheat, Aegilops tauschii, has been a productive source of new leaf rust resistance genes, among which is Lr42. ARS researchers in Manhattan, Kansas, and colleagues at Kansas State University identified the specific resistance gene. Although similar sequences were found in wheat and its ancestral species, the actual Lr42 gene sequence was found only in one accession of Aegilops tauschii. Efficient genetic markers for the Lr42 gene were developed, and these markers will be important tools in the development of resistant wheat varieties that combine Lr42 with other leaf rust resistance genes to prevent the breakdown of the resistance gene(s) by the leaf rust pathogen.

Review Publications
Ranabhat, N.B., Bruce, M.A., Fellers, J.P., Rupp, J. 2022. A reproducible methodology for absolute viral quantification and viability determination in mechanical inoculations of wheat streak mosaic virus. Tropical Plant Pathology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40858-022-00507-y.
Venegas, J., Guttieri, M.J., Boehm Jr, J.D., Graybosch, R.A., Bai, G., St. Amand, P.C., Palmer, N.A., Hussain, W., Blecha, S., Baenziger, P. 2022. Genetic architecture of the high inorganic phosphate phenotype derived from a low phytate mutant in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Crop Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20738.
Grewal, S., Joynson, R., Coombes, B., Hall, A., Fellers, J.P., Yang, C., Scholefield, D., Ashling, S., Hubbart-Edwards, S., Isaac, P., King, I., King, J. 2022. Chromosome-specific KASP markers for detecting Amblyopyrum muticum segments in wheat introgression lines. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20193.
Yu, S., Assanga, S., Vader, S., Awika, J., Ibrahim, A., Rudd, J., Xue, Q., Guttieri, M.J., Zhang, G., Baker, J., Jessup, K., Liu, S. 2021. Genetic mapping of end-use quality quantitative trait loci in hard red winter wheat. Agronomy. 11(12). Article 2519. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11122519.
Zhang, P., Tilley, M., Bai, G., Harmer, S.E., Seabourn, B.W., Zhang, G. 2021. Effect of wheat quality traits and glutenin composition on tortilla quality from the USDA Southern Regional Performance Nursery. Cereal Chemistry. 98:1227-1237. https://doi.org/10.1002/cche.10475.
Xu, X., Mornhinweg, D.W., Bai, G., Steffenson, B., Bian, R., Li, G., Bernardo, A. 2021. Rsg1.a3: A new allele conferring unique resistance to greenbug biotype H at the Rsg1 locus in Hordeum vulgar ssp spontaneum. Crop Science. 61:3578-3585. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20581.
Li, X., Guo, T., Bai, G., Zhang, Z., See, D.R., Marshall, J., Garland Campbell, K.A., Yu, J. 2022. Genetics-inspired data-driven approaches explain and predict crop performance fluctuations attributed to changing climatic conditions. Molecular Plant. 15(2):203-206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2022.01.001.
Ghimire, B., Mergoum, M., Martinez-Espinoza, A.D., Sapkota, S., Pradhan, S., Babar, M.A., Bai, G., Dong, Y., Buck, J.W. 2022. Genetics of Fusarium head blight resistance in soft red winter wheat using a genome-wide association study. The Plant Genome. e20222. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20222.
Xu, Y., La, G., Fatima, N., Liu, Z., Zhang, L., Zhao, L., Chen, M., Bai, G. 2021. Precise mapping of QTL for Hessian fly resistance in the hard winter wheat cultivar ‘Overland’. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03940-w.
Zhang, L., Xu, Y., Chen, M., Su, Z., Liu, Y., Xu, Y., La, G., Bai, G. 2021. Identification of a major QTL for Hessian fly resistance in wheat cultivar ‘Chokwang'. The Crop Journal. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cj.2021.08.004.
Kolmer, J.A., Herman, A.C., Fellers, J.P. 2022. Genotype groups of the wheat leaf rust fungus Puccinia triticina in the United States as determined by genotyping by sequencing. Phytopathology. 112(3):653-662. https://doi.org/10.1094/phyto-03-21-0125-r.
Nyine, M., Adhikari, E., Clinesmith, M., Aiken, R., Betzen, B., He, F., Akhunova, A., Jordan, K., Fritz, A., Akhunov, E., Wang, W., Davidson, D., Yu, Z., Guo, Y. 2021. The haplotype-based analysis of Aegilops tauschii introgression into hard red winter wheat and its impact on productivity traits. Frontiers in Plant Science. 12. Article 1694. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.716955.
Chu, C.N., Rudd, J.C., Chen, M., Wang, S., Ibrahim, A.M., Xue, Q., Devkota, R.N., Baker, J.A., Baker, S., Simoneaux, B., Opena, G., Dong, H. 2022. A new strategy for using historical imbalanced yield data to conduct genome-wide association studies and develop genomic prediction models for wheat breeding. Molecular Breeding. 42. Article e18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-022-01287-8.
Li, H., Zhang, F., Zhao, J., Bai, G., St Amand, P.C., Bernardo, A.E., Ni, Z., Xun, Q., Su, Z. 2022. Identification of a novel major QTL from Chinese wheat cultivar Ji5265 for Fusarium head blight resistance in greenhouse. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Genetics. 135.1867–1877. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04080-5.
Xu, X., Kolmer, J., Li, G., Tan, C., Carver, B.F., Bian, R., Bernardo, A., Bai, G. 2022. Identification and characterization of the novel leaf rust resistance gene Lr81 in wheat. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Genetics. Article 04145-5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04145-5.
Hafeez, A., Arora, S., Sreya, G., Gilbert, D., Bowden, R.L., Wulff, B. 2021. Creation and judicious application of a wheat resistance gene atlas. Molecular Plant. 14(7):1053-1070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2021.05.014.
Lin, G., Chen, H., Tian, B., Sehgal, S.K., Xie, J., Julian, P., Singh, N., Rawat, N., Shrestha, S., Wilson, D., Shult, H., Tiwari, V.K., Singh, R.P., Guttieri, M.J., Trick, H.N., Poland, J., Bowden, R.L., Bai, G., Gill, B., Liu, S. 2022. Cloning of the broadly effective wheat leaf rust resistance gene Lr42 transferred from Aegilops tauschii. Nature Plants. 13. Article 3044. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30784-9.
Wang, W., Tian, B., Pan, Q., Chen, Y., He, F., Bai, G., Akhunova, A., Trick, H., Akhunov, E. 2020. Expanding target editing space in the wheat genome using the variants of the Cas12a and Cas9 nucleases. Plant Biotechnology Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13669.
Hussain, S., Habib, M., Ahmed, Z., Sadia, B., Bernardo, A.E., St Amand, P.C., Bai, G., Ghori, N., Khan, A., Awan, F., Maqbool, R. 2022. Genotyping-by-sequencing based molecular genetic diversity of Pakistani bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) accessions. Frontiers in Genetics. 13. Article 772517. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2022.772517.
Zhang, J., Gill, H., Brar, N., Halder, J., Ali, S., Liu, X., Bernardo, A.E., St Amand, P.C., Bai, G., Turnipseed, B., Sehgal, S. 2022. Genomic prediction of Fusarium head blight resistance in early stages using advanced breeding lines in hard winter wheat. The Crop Journal. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cj.2022.03.010.
Gill, H., Halder, J., Zhang, J., Brar, N., Hall, C., Rai, T., Bernardo, A.E., St Amand, P.C., Bai, G., Olson, E., Ali, S., Turnipseed, B., Sehgal, S. 2021. Multi-trait multi-environment genomic prediction of agronomic traits in advanced breeding lines of winter wheat. Frontiers in Plant Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.709545.
Chai, L., Xin, M., Dong, C., Chen, Z., Zhai, H., Cheng, X., Wang, N., Geng, J., Bian, R., Bai, G., Yao, Y., Guo, W., Hu, Z., Peng, H., Sun, Q., Su, Z., Liu, J., Ni, Z. 2022. A truncated RNase H-like protein underlining Rht8 to regulate the ‘Green Revolution’ trait in wheat. Molecular Plant. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2022.01.013.
Sprague, S., Tamang, T., Steiner, T., Wu, Q., Hu, Y., Kakeshpour, T., Park, J., Yang, J., Peng, Z., Bergkamp, B., Somayanda, I., Peterson, M., Garcia, E., Hao, Y., St Amand, P.C., Bai, G., Nakata, P., Rieu, I., Jackson, D., Cheng, N., Valent, B., Hirschi, K., Jagadish, K., Liu, S., White, F., Park, S. 2022. Redox-engineering enhances maize thermotolerance and grain yield in the field. Plant Biotechnology Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13866.
Pang, Y., Wu, Y., Liu, C., Li, W., St Amand, P.C., Bernardo, A.E., Wang, D., Dong, L., Yung, X., Zhang, H., Zhao, M., Wang, L., He, F., Liang, Y., Yan, Q., Lu, Y., Yu, S., Wu, J., Li, A., Kong, L., Bai, G., Liu, S. 2021. High-resolution genome-wide association study and genomic prediction for disease resistance and cold tolerance in wheat. Theoretical and Applied Genetics. 134:2857–2873. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03863-6.
Tene, M., Adhikari, E., Cobo, N., Jordan, K., Matny, O., Del Blanco, I.A., Roter, J., Ezrati, S., Govta, L., Manisterski, J., Yehuda, P.B., Chen, X., Steffenson, B., Akhunov, E., Sela, H. 2022. GWAS for Stripe Rust Resistance in Wild Emmer Wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) Population: Obstacles and Solutions. Crops. 2(1):42-61. https://doi.org/10.3390/crops2010005.
Fu, J., Jagadish, K., Bowden, R.L. 2022. Effects of post-flowering heat stress on chlorophyll content and yield components of a spring wheat diversity panel. Crop Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20778.
Guorong, Z., Martin, T., Fritz, A., Li, Y., Seabourn, B.W., Chen, Y., Bai, G., Bowden, R.L., Chen, M., Rupp, J., Jin, Y., Chen, X., Kolmer, J.A., Marshall, D.S. 2021. Registration of ‘KS Hamilton’ Hard Red Winter Wheat. Journal of Plant Registrations. https://doi.org/10.1002/plr2.20190.
Xu, X., Bai, G., Li, G., Cowger, C., Bernardo, A.E., Carver, B., St Amand, P.C., Bian, R. 2021. Characterization of PmBN418, a wheat powdery mildew resistance gene on the rye 1RS chromosome arm. Crop Science. 61(6):4194-4201. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20637.
Zhang, J., Gill, H., Halder, J., Brar, N., Shaukat, A., Bernardo, A.E., St Amand, P.C., Bai, G., Turnipseed, B., Sehgal, S. 2022. Multi-locus genome-wide association studies to characterize Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance in hard winter wheat. Frontiers in Plant Science. 13. Article 946700. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.946700.