Introgression of Aegilops mutica genes into common wheat genome

Introgression of genetic material from wheat wild relatives into the common wheat genome remains important. This is a natural and inexhaustible source of enrichment of the wheat gene pool with genes that improve wheat’s adaptive potential. Hexaploid lines F₄–F₅ of wheat type were developed via hybridization of common wheat Aurora (AABBDD) and genome-substituted amphidiploid Aurotica (AABBTT). The hexaploid genome of the latter includes the diploid genome TT from wheat relative Aegilops mutica instead of subgenome DD of common wheat. F₁–F₃ hybrids had limited self-fertility, which had substantially increased for some derivatives in F₄–F₅. For all generations, development of the lines was accompanied by cytogenetic control of the chromosome numbers. The chromosome numbers varied in general from 33 to 46 depending upon generation. In most descendants, that number was 42 chromosomes in F₄ when plants with chromosome numbers 40–44 were selected in each generation. F₅ lines originate from nine selffertile F₂ plants, differ from Aurora according to some morphological characters, and have alien DNA in their genome as was demonstrated by DNA dot-blot hybridization with genomic DNA of Aegilops mutica as a probe.