Wheat is a major food source for a large proportion of the worldwide population. Wheat production is hampered by drought, cold and various diseases. Wheat germplasms contain various characteristics such as high yield, low plant height, resistance to diverse diseases and good seed quality. In this study, we evaluated agronomic traits of wheat germplasms collected from the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) for application of the breeding program. Total 221 wheat lines contain cultivars and landraces were provided by NPGS and USDA-ARS. The germplasms were evaluated quantitative and qualitative agronomic properties in Korea university research farm. The agronomic traits of the germplasms in each region were analysed using statistical analysis. The most of germplasms were geographically originated from America continent. The germplasms average heading date showed on May 10. The average heading date of Africa germplasms was 6 days earlier than Europe germplasms. The germplasms average plant height and spike length showed 81.7 cm and 8.6 cm, respectively. The germplasms of Europe showed 21.7 cm taller than average plant height of America continent and the germplasms of Africa showed the smallest plant height comparing with other continents. The germplasms of Asia showed taller spikere length than that of other continents. Seed color in germplasm comprises white, red and purple seed color, 24%, 75%, 1%, respectively. In addition, about 39% of the germplasms indicated lodging resistant. These results could be useful for improvement of wheat breeding program.

Soil salinity limits crop productivity in many regions. This problem would be more serious as the global climate changes and worldwide water shortages would accelerate soil salinization. This study is fulfilled with aim on resolve crop cultivation in dry/saline land as an international joint research project with Tunisia. Total 48 lines of wheat cultivars including 32 common wheat (16 Korean wheat, 16 Tunisian common wheat) and 16 Tunisian durum wheat were incorporated in this study. Salt stress was applied for 2 weeks by submerging the pots into 500 mM NaCl at 3-leaf stage followed by re-watering for restoration in greenhouse. Numerous agronomic/growth parameters were scored for tolerence. SSR primers that have been known to be related to salt tolerance were applied to explain selected population. The correlation between PCR-based length polymorphism of selected lines and their resistance were evaluated. The obtained information will aid selection for salt tolerance hexa/tetraploid wheats. Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2012K1A3A1A09028123) and carried out with the support of “Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project title: Development of high yielding wheat with stress tolerance via molecular breeding strategies, Project No. PJ008031)”, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

Brachypodium has been focused as new model plant for grass species. Like small size, small room requirement, and fast growth, Brachypodium shows numerous advantages as a model plant. Brachypodium is a typical grass at the genome level, which also exhibits an overall similarity of gene content and gene families when compared with rice (Oryza sativa) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) genomes. Brachypodium is an excellent material for structural and functional genomic studies in grass species. Targeting-Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes (TILLING) is a high-throughput technique and an approach for reverse genetics study. Moreover, it has been wildly utilized to find induced mutation. Bradi3g45515 is orthologue of the cellulose synthase-like HvCslF8 in barley. For TILLING library construction, 384 M2 Brachypodium mutants induced by chronic-gamma irradiation were used. Single nucleotide polymorphysm (SNP) and small deletion in Bradi3g45515 were searched through TILLING analysis. Template DNA for PCR reaction were prepared according to two dimensional pooling (eightfold) strategy. Heteroduplex DNA was digested by SURVEYOR nuclease (TRANSGENOMIC) and the DNA fragment was detected using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Positive signal appeared at polyacrylamide gel from more than 4 lines and their Bradi3g45515 region were sequenced. SNP(s) were identified in 509-2 and 677-3 mutant line. Cellulose content and/or cell wall materials content will be measured using these mutants.