LAUSR

Wheat (Triticum spp. L.) is a leading cereal contributing to the nourishment of humankind. Since its domestication ca. 12 000 years ago, humans have profoundly influenced its evolution. In the more recent past, breeding via cross-hybridization and the selection of progeny with superior end-use quality have moved from solely phenotyping (for example, bread baking quality), to a more detailed genetic approach of selecting genes, alleles and whole genome structure for desirable traits. The present review provides a brief historical summary of wheat improvement for end-use quality. In the last ~150 years, wheat improvement has benefited from advances in genetics, chemistry and biotechnology. In the past couple decades, rapid advances in DNA and next-generation sequencing technology have promised a revolution in wheat improvement. The various technologies are reviewed here. The ‘future’ of wheat improvement may involve the whole-genome-based analysis, ‘genomic selection’. However, to date, the plethora of QTL ...