Climate Resilient Wheat Innovation Lab Using cutting edge science to develop heat tolerant and climate resilient wheat varieties

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Wishes you Happy Holidays

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New Year 2017

Year in review: • Multi-location,multi-year field and control condition screening resulted in the identification of 19lineswithcomplementarymechanismofheattoleranceinwheat.• ForMABS/MAFS,11BC1populationswith>2000seedshavebeendeveloped.• More than900doubledhaploids from fivepopulationshavebeendevelopedwith threeatvariousstagesoffieldevaluationatpartnerlocationsinIndia.• KASP,GBSandiPlexMassARRAYSNPgenotypingplatformswereoptimizedatWSU.Theseplatformswillbeusedtogenotypethemappingpopulationtoidentifygene/QTLassociatedwithheattolerance.• Usingcontrolconditionheatscreening,wehaveidentifiedthemostheattolerantlineforeachofthetraitsincludingvegetativebiomass,grainweight,height,floweringtimeandspikeletnumber.• Detailedstructural,functionalandevolutionaryanalysesviabioinformaticswerecompletedforfivegenespossiblyinvolvedinprovidingheattoleranceinwheat.• In-vitropollengerminationandfourcontrolconditionsreliableandhighthrough-putprotocolwereoptimizedforwheatalongwithoptimizationofenzymaticassayforα-amylaseandRubiscoactivase.• Morethan44students/scientistsweretrainedinvariousprojectrelatedactivities.• WSUundergraduate,JakeLazergotearlycareerawardduringundergraduateresearchexpo-SURCA.• ScalingpartnershipwithUniversityofFaisalabadwasinitiatedalongwithsuccessfulrecruitmentofself-fundedjuniorfacultytopursuegraduatestudiesatWSU.• Selected through open competition, three students from three Indian partner institutes areconductingpartoftheirresearchatKSUandWSU.• Attended by ~200 participants, International workshop to develop climate resilient cereals wassuccessfullyorganizedatPAU.Newpartnershipwasinitiated,projectprogresswasevaluatedandnextyearplanwasdiscussed.