A dosage effect of chromosome 5A (formerly IX) of common wheat, Triticum aestivum L. emend Thell. ssp. vulgare, has been well established. With increasing dosage from monosomic to tetrasomic, the phenotype changes from speltoid to normal vulgare type (squarehead) to subcompactoid to compactoid (HUSKINS 1946; SEARS 1952, 1954) (Figure 1 and Table 3) . This is due to the pleiotropic gene Q locate...

Spike hetero branching wheat (Triticum aestivum) (SHBW) has one main rachis, but has branched rachises at lower parts of main rachis. This type of spike could increase greatly grain number by bearing grain in branching rachis. In this study, field experiments were conducted at three locations in Huanghuai wheat zone during two growing seasons (2008-2010). The rachises length, node number, grain...

Root knot nematodes (RKN; Meloidogyne spp.) cause severe losses worldwide to a wide range of crops. Crop rotations with resistant hosts can be used to control losses, but the wide host range of RKN limits this option. In this study, we found that the wheat cultivar Lassik is resistant to several isolates of the RKN species M. incognita and M. javanica, including those that can reproduce on toma...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous small non-coding RNAs that arise from large RNA precursors with a stem-loop structure and play important roles in plant development and responses to environmental stress. Although a hundred and nineteen wheat miRNAs have been identified and registered in the miRBase (Release 21.0, June, 2014; http://www.mirbase.org), the functional characterization o...

In common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), allelic variations of Glu-A1 locus have important influences on grain end-use quality. Among the three Glu-A1 alleles, Glu-A1a and -A1b encode the high-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GSs) 1Ax1 and 1Ax2*, respectively, whereas Glu-A1c does not specify any subunit. Here, we detected a total of 11 Glu-A1 locus haplotypes (H1 to H11) in three wheat s...

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)/faba bean (Vicia faba L.) intercropping shows significant overyielding and high nitrogen (N)-use efficiency, but the dynamics of plant interactions have rarely been estimated. The objective of the present study was to investigate the temporal dynamics of competitive N acquisition between intercropped wheat and faba bean with the logistic model. Wheat and faba bean w...

TAXI-I (Triticum aestivum xylanase inhibitor I) is a wheat grain protein that inhibits arabinoxylan fragmentation by microbial endo-beta-1,4-xylanases used in the food industry. Although TAXI was speculated to be involved in counterattack against pathogens, there is actually no evidence to support this hypothesis. We have now demonstrated the presence of TAXI family members with isolation of tw...

ALTHOUGH genes governing many characters have been transferred between species, the inheritance of only a few of these genes has been studied in detail in their new genetic backgrounds. ALLARD and SHANDS (1954) reported that the stem rust resistance transferred from Triticum timopheeui Zhuk. to a common wheat variety C.I. 12633 was controlled in certain hybrids by duplicate dominant genes linke...

Earliness per se genes are those that regulate flowering time independently of vernalization and photoperiod, and are important for the fine tuning of flowering time and for the wide adaptation of wheat to different environments. The earliness per se locus Eps-A(m)1 was recently mapped within a 0.8 cM interval on chromosome 1A(m)L of diploid wheat Triticum monococcum L., and it was shown that i...

Doubled haploid (DH) populations are useful to scientists and breeders in both crop improvement and basic research. Current methods of producing DHs usually need in vitro culture for extracting haploids and chemical treatment for chromosome doubling. This report describes a simple method for synthesizing DHs (SynDH) especially for allopolyploid species by utilizing meiotic restitution genes. Th...