engleski

Wheat Breeding Challenges Related to Climate Changes

Wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) is one of the most widely grown crops in the world, with production of 772 million tonnes on 219 million hectares in 2017, providing in average 20% of the total calories in human consumption. Estimated population growth of up to 9 billion people by 2050 clearly demands further wheat production increase. Contrary to these needs, especially in the past few decades, we all have been witnessing increasingly frequent deviations in weather patterns which threaten not only agricultural production but also many other aspects of modern life, and signal that the Earths climate is changing. It seems inevitably that next, in fact already ongoing, long term humanity challenge will be facing with progressive climate changes in order to ensure sufficient food supply. The most direct solution to these challenges in wheat case will be to increase productivity through the adoption of cultivars with improved genetic potential as well as improved response against diverse abiotic and biotic stressors. Wheat yield increase in the past 70 years was driven mainly by new improved cultivars coupled with enhanced agrotechnical measures (fertilizers, pesticides, soil tillage). Nowadays, even greater responsibility has been placed on breeders to create cultivars which will be able to deal with rapidly changing environment. Implementation of integrative and interdisciplinary breeding approach will be necessary to successfully address this issue on both regional and global level. An overview of main breeding objectives, efforts, issues, results and prospects in the Agricultural Institute Osijek wheat breeding programme regarding climate changes are going to be presented.

wheat breeding, climate changes, cultivars

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