Editorial: Aegilops: Promising Genesources to Improve Agronomical and Quality Traits of Wheat

Aegilops species have contributed significantly to wheat improvement despite the challenges in exploiting wild species, such as crossability and incompatibility (Börner et al., 2015; Fedak, 2015). They have been used in particular as sources of genes conferring resistance to biotic stresses, but also for more complex traits such as abiotic stress and yield.

The genus Aegilops consists of 22 species with the C, D, M, N, S, T and U genomes, which have high allelic diversity relative to wheat. Aegilops tauschii, the D-genome donor of bread wheat, has been most widely used for wheat breeding, followed by A. speltoides and A. ventricosa. However, because most Aegilops species are in the secondary and tertiary gene pools of wheat they are difficult to utilize due to recombination barriers and useful variation from these species is only available in the form of translocation/introgression lines.