Unlocking the genetic potential of Triticum urartu for wheat improvement: a review

Abstract

The narrow genetic base of cultivated wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) remains a major constraint to genetic improvement, particularly in addressing current and emerging production challenges. Expanding this genetic base is essential to overcome yield plateaus and meet the food demands of a growing global population. Wild relatives and ancestral progenitors of wheat harbour extensive, underutilized genetic diversity that can be harnessed for crop improvement. Among these, Triticum urartu, the A-genome donor of bread and durum wheat, presents a potentially valuable reservoir of traits related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and grain quality. In this review, we summarise current knowledge on the potential of T. urartu as a source of resistance to major wheat diseases including powdery mildew, stem rust (notably the highly virulent race Ug99), leaf rust, and stripe rust. In addition, we discuss the potential of T. urartu as a source of drought and heat tolerance, enhanced photosynthetic traits and quality associated traits. We further highlight the successful introgression of T. urartu chromosomes into diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid wheat backgrounds, demonstrating its compatibility across multiple ploidy levels. Advances in doubled haploid (DH) technology have recently accelerated the generation of homozygous wheat–T. urartu introgression lines, thereby facilitating rapid trait fixation and efficient germplasm development. The application of molecular marker technologies, including SNP-based kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) assays, has further improved the characterization of T. urartu genetic diversity and the precise tracking of introgression lines. The increasing availability of validated SNP datasets in public repositories and the development of scalable high- and -medium throughput genotyping platforms are further accelerating wheat–T. urartu introgression programs.