SYNTHETIC AMPHIDIPLOID WHEAT – A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF RAISING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

Synthetic wheat is from the genetic point of view an amphidiploid which combines the genome of parents. It often exhibits superior characteristics that contribute to the enlargement of genetic variation in breeding programs or in the development of new varieties. Breeding programs of NARDI Fundulea, the most important agricultural research unit in Romania began to increase genetic variability by incorporating wild genes to exploit the improvement of wheat through crosses with wild ancestors and succeeded in creating lines of synthetic wheat with some higher quality components. Experimented lines of these programs proved to be an efficient and beneficial source of new genes for common wheat quality from the southern area of Romania.