Grain yield and grain protein percentage of common wheat lines with wild emmer chromosome-arm substitutions E. Millet • J.-K. Rong • C. O. Qualset • P. E. Mcguire • M. Bernard • P. Sourdille • M. Feldman Received: 23 April 2013 / Accepted: 27 June 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Wild emmer wheat, Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides, (2n = 49= 28; genome BBAA), the progenitor of domesticated wheat, is genetically closely related to durum and common wheat. This wild taxon has characteristics that would be valuable if transferred to domesticated wheat. A series of chromo- some-arm substitution lines (CASLs) of wild emmer wheat were produced in the background of an Israeli common wheat cultivar. These CASLs were evaluated in a pot experiment and in field trials in Israel and California for their grain yield (GY) and its components and for grain protein percentage. In addition, the extent of genetic interactions (epistatic effects) between ‘‘wild’’ and ‘‘domesticated’’ alleles, within and between homoeologous groups 1 and 7 as expressed in grain and protein yields and other quantitative traits, were determined. The research has shown that wild emmer wheat harbors genetic variability for quantitative traits and that the ‘‘wild’’ genes interact among themselves in a non-additive way in the common genetic background. Several chromosome arms improve GY and protein percentage in common wheat, but their effects will be presumably enhanced when combination of genes from several ‘‘wild’’ arms are integrated into a single ‘‘domesticated’’ genotype. Hence, the interaction between these genes and those in the recipient common wheat must be accounted for when higher yield or protein content is desired. The results of this study indicate on the potential of this material for breeding and genetic analysis, and support the idea of pyramid- ing genes from a wild species. Keywords Common wheat Á Durum wheat Á Grain protein content Á Grain yield Á Yield components Á Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides Introduction Common and durum wheat, like many other crops, exhibit a relatively narrow range of genetic variation E. Millet Á J.-K. Rong Á M. Feldman (&) Department of Plant Sciences, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel e-mail: moshe.feldman@weizmann.ac.il Present Address: E. Millet Institute for Cereal Crops Improvement, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel Present Address: J.-K. Rong School of Agriculture and Food Science, Zhejiang A & F University, Linan, Hangzhou 311300, Zhejiang, China C. O. Qualset Á P. E. Mcguire Department of Plant Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA M. Bernard Á P. Sourdille Station d’Amelioration des Plantes, INRA, Clermont-Ferrand, France 123 Euphytica DOI 10.1007/s10681-013-0975-2