Rapid Evolution of wild barley: R-Evolve

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Genetic diversity is the fuel that drives crop improvement. However, in our major cereal crops, by continually crossing closely related high performing individuals, traditional methods of crop improvement have resulted in a drastic loss of overall diversity. While strategies for mobilising diversity controlling simple traits (e.g. disease resistance) from more diverse wild accessions or landraces into cultivars do already exist, none are effective for introducing components of key complex traits that include such as tolerance to biotic or abiotic stresses, or components of yield. We propose to develop a radically different approach to refreshing the diversity in the barley breeding genepool. Our proposed enrichment strategy involves the partial domestication of wild genotypes by incorporating key domestication genes and genes required for modern NW European agriculture in a wild barley background. We will then evaluate the new partial domesticates as both inbreds and F1 hybrids, the latter generated efficiently using a male sterile derivative of a contemporary elite cultivar. We expect to construct completely novel and diverse germplasm pools that will have value for future barley breeding. In the process we will address a fundamental issue that is vexing the genetic resources and breeding communities, i.e. how to efficiently extract value from diverse germplasm in crop improvement programs for complex and multigenic traits.