Breeding of Winter-Hardiness in Winter Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Winter survival is an essential trait for winter wheat cultivars that are grown in high-latitude growing regions such as Canada. The objectives of this study were to: 1) develop a high-throughput phenotyping tool that can be used to screen winter wheat for winter survival; 2) to identify genetic regions that are associated with winter survival and; 3) evaluate optimal candidate gene combination for better winter survival in Eastern Canada. In this study, a panel of 450 winter wheat cultivars was tested in three location-year combinations. The study demonstrated that images captured by unmanned aerial vehicle were able to be used to evaluate the winter survival of winter wheat. Genome-wide association study was conducted and resulted in identification of nine QTL that are associated with winter survival. Lastly, the combination of the Fr-A2-T haplotype and three copies of Vrn-A1 was associated with better winter survival in Eastern Canada.