Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agronomy / Allan Fritz / Wheat breeders are constantly working to develop new wheat varieties with improved
performance for agronomically important traits such as yield and disease resistance. Identifying
better ways of phenotyping germplasm, developing methods for predicting performance based on
genetic information, and identifying novel sources of genetic disease resistance can all improve
the efficiency of breeding efforts. Three studies relating to these research interests were
conducted. Synthetic hexaploid wheat lines were screened for resistance to root-lesion
nematodes, an economically important pest of wheat. This resulted in the identification of three
lines resistant to the root-lesion nematode species Pratylenchus thornei. Grain yield data from
multi-location yield trials and average yields for counties in Kansas were used to identify wheat
production areas in Kansas. Knowledge obtained from this study is useful for both interpreting
data from yield trials and deciding where to place them in order to identify new higher yielding
varieties. These data also aided the final research study, developing a genomic selection (GS)
model for yield in the Kansas State University wheat breeding program. This model was used to
assess the accuracy of GS in conditions experienced in a breeding project. Available
measurements of GS have been constructed using simulations or using conditions not typical of
those experienced in a wheat breeding program. The estimate of accuracy determined in this
study was less than many of the reported measurements. This measure of accuracy will aid in
determining if GS is a cost efficient tool for use in wheat breeding.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:KSU/oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/18856 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Gaynor, Robert C. |
| Publisher | Kansas State University |
| Source Sets | K-State Research Exchange |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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