Purification and DNA fingerprinting of selected wheat collections from ICBA’s genebank and Sharjah municipality, UAE

Background

Wheat is vital for the UAE’s food supply. Local farms cultivate traditional wheat types for consumption and production. ICBA gathered over 10 local landraces, while Sharjah municipality provided 10 cultivars for testing under different abiotic stress conditions. In a 2022-23 experiment, these 20 collections were grown in fresh water and saline conditions, revealing diverse plant types in each collection, leading ICBA’s researchers to harvest single spikes for further study.

Objective

• Make single plant selections in landrace to develop uniform populations for different plant types to evaluate their suitability to UAE’s growing conditions.
• Develop molecular marker panels for training and testing DNA fingerprinting models using machine learning and deep learning technologies.

Experiment Details

Total number of entries: 65
Plot size: 2 rows of 2 m each
Spacing: 25 x 52 cm (within the plot); 50 cm between entries
Date of sowing: 24 October 2023