The effects of crop attributes, selection, and recombination on Canadian bread wheat molecular variation

Cultivated germplasm provides an opportunity to investigate how crop agronomic traits, selection for major genes, and differences in crossing-over rates drive patterns of allelic variation. To identify these factors correlated with variation within a collection cultivated bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), we generated genotypes 388 accessions grown Canada over the past 170 yr using filtered single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) calls from Illumina Wheat iSelect 90K SNP-array. Entries’ breeding program, era release, grain texture, kernel color, growth habit contributed differentiation. Allelic diversity linkage disequilibrium (LD) markers flanking some loci known affect traits such as gluten strength, habit, color were consistent selective sweeps. Nonetheless, had low LD high diversity. Positive may have acted upon homoeologous genes that significant enrichment gene ontology terms ‘response-to-auxin’ ‘response-to-wounding.’ Long regions LD, spanning approximately one-third length entire chromosomes, associated many pericentromeric regions. These also characterized by Enhancing recombination across could generate novel allele combinations accelerate Canadian improvement.