Engineers chose electrification as the 20th century's greatest engineering achievement, according to the National Academy of Engineering, and reported in USA Today. The automobile is next, followed by the
airplane, safe water supply/treatment, electronics, radio and TV, agricultural mechanization, computers, telephone, and air conditioning/refrigeration.So what do wheat breeders think are the top 10 accomplishments in
international wheat breeding over the past century?
Fourteen wheat breeders from across the U.S. involved with the National Wheat Improvement Committee were asked that question, and following is the polling result,
although the list is not prioritized:
1. Incorporation of semi-dwarfing genes into adapted and high yielding wheat to allow increased management for greater yield.
2. Incorporation of
day-length insensitivity response to allow much wider adaptation of wheat into much different day-length growing conditions.
3. Green revolution: modification of plant type by methods one and two listed
above
to allow fertilizer efficiency, especially use of nitrogen.
4. Development and integration of related species genes or chromosome fragments into wheat for disease resistance and better
adaptation—examples include leaf rust resistance and stem rust resistance.
5. Emergence of possible new wheat market classes: For example, hard white wheat.
6. Improved yield and
identification of biochemical basis or wheat quality and use of this knowledge to improve end-use quality with improved yield.
7. Identification of biochemical and physiological basis of some stress
tolerance factors, such as drought.
8. Improved crop mechanization and computers allowing increases in amount of germplasm evaluated, thus increasing the probabilities of selecting better varieties.
9. Identification or resistance to insect problems and rapid incorporation of this resistance. Examples: Russian wheat aphid, barley stripe rust, gene resistance for hessian fly.
10.
International nurseries and improved travel and communications that have fostered rapid germplasm exchange. (Although, the breeders noted, this activity is being reduced by increasing legal restrictions and government
quarantines).
