Genomic Approaches in Wheat Breeding for Sustainable Production under Changing Climate

Abstract

Wheat is the most important cereal crop, a great source of dietary protein. It is grown worldwide for its consumption in the form of different products. Wheat production faces a lot of biotic and abiotic stresses that hinder growth and yield. Changing climate is a worse scenario to be adopted for sustainable production. Food demand is rapidly increasing by a drastic increase in the world population. Conventional breeding techniques are time-consuming and ineffective in attaining high yield goals under changing climates. Next-generation sequencing revolutionized wheat breeding through molecular approaches for effective selection. The use of genomic approaches in wheat breeding is the need of time for sustainable production. Several genomic approaches, such as use of genome-wide markers for gene mapping, genomic selection and recurrent selection through QTL and meta-QTL analysis, markers-assisted selection in haploid breeding, heterosis breeding through genomic tools, and biotechnological tools, are currently used as modern techniques for developing climate-resilient wheat cultivars. This chapter illustrated the challenges of changing climate, molecular techniques in wheat breeding to develop climate-resilient genotypes, sustainable wheat production to cope with food demand, and future breeding strategies.