Abstract
Wheat is an important staple food and most widely grown cereal of the world. The dependence of
large population on this food crop and increasing population of the world requires much more wheat
to be produced. Efforts were made to increase wheat productivity and a remarkable success named
“Green Revolution” boosted the wheat productivity in 1960s. However, by the course of time, no
further significant improvement was noted. Through successive struggles, scientists developed
synthetic wheat, derived from cross between Triticum turgidum L. and Aegilops tauschii (ancestors of
bread wheat; Triticum aestivum). These synthetic wheat cultivars proved a great source of unexplored
genetic variability and possessed improved traits like high yield, tolerance to abiotic and biotic
stresses etc. Currently, new synthetic wheat has been developed, named as “super wheat” having at
least 30 % higher yield than the existing wheat cultivars. This article summarizes the efforts made and
goals achieved in the field of wheat breeding with special reference to synthetic wheat.
Rashid Mehmood Rana, Muhammad Bilal, Shoaib Ur Rehman, Farrukh Iqbal, Muhammad Kausar Nawaz Shah. (2013) SYNTHETIC WHEAT; A NEW HOPE FOR THE HUNGRY WORLD, Asian Journal of Agriculture and Biology, Volume 1, Issue 2.
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