Abstract
Wheat accounts for 19% of the total production of major cereal crops in the world. In view of ever increasing population and demand for global food production, there is an imperative need of 40–60% increase in wheat production to meet the requirement of developing world in coming 40 years. However, both biotic and abiotic stresses are major hurdles for attaining the goal. Among the most important diseases in wheat, fungal diseases pose serious threat for widening the gap between actual and attainable yield. Fungal disease management, mainly, depends on the pathogen detection, genetic and pathological variability in population, development of resistant cultivars and deployment of effective resistant genes in different epidemiological regions. Wheat protection and breeding of resistant cultivars using conventional methods are time-consuming, intricate and slow processes. Molecular markers offer an excellent alternative in development of improved disease resistant cultivars that would lead to increase in crop yield. They are employed for tagging the important disease resistance genes and provide valuable assistance in increasing selection efficiency for valuable traits via marker assisted selection (MAS). Plant breeding strategies with known molecular markers for resistance and functional genomics enable a breeder for developing resistant cultivars of wheat against different fungal diseases.
Highlights
Wheat is a major staple food for mankind in many parts of the world with 714 million tons produced during 2013
Novel genetic tools based on molecular marker technologies provide a good alternative for developing improved resistant cultivars
Mutagenesisderived broad-spectrum disease resistance may lead to a better understanding of the regulation of defense response networks in wheat
Summary
In view of ever increasing population and demand for global food production, there is an imperative need of 40–60% increase in wheat production to meet the requirement of developing world in coming 40 years. Both biotic and abiotic stresses are major hurdles for attaining the goal. Molecular markers offer an excellent alternative in development of improved disease resistant cultivars that would lead to increase in crop yield They are employed for tagging the important disease resistance genes and provide valuable assistance in increasing selection efficiency for valuable traits via marker assisted selection (MAS).
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