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Winter wheat in England and Wales, 1923–1995: what do indices of genetic diversity reveal?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2007

C. S. Srinivasan ,
Colin Thirtle  and
Paolo Palladino
C. S. Srinivasan*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Food Economics, University of Reading, UK
Colin Thirtle
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, UK
Paolo Palladino
Affiliation:
Department of History, Lancaster University, UK
*
* Corresponding author: Department of Agricultural and Food Economics, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, The University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AR, UK. E-mail: aes02css@reading.ac.uk
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Abstract

Genealogical data have been used very widely to construct indices with which to examine the contribution of plant breeding programmes to the maintenance and enhancement of genetic resources. In this paper we use such indices to examine changes in the genetic diversity of the winter wheat crop in England and Wales between 1923 and 1995. We find that, except for one period characterized by the dominance of imported varieties, the genetic diversity of the winter wheat crop has been remarkably stable. This agrees with many studies of plant breeding programmes elsewhere. However, underlying the stability of the winter wheat crop is accelerating varietal turnover without any significant diversification of the genetic resources used. Moreover, the changes we observe are more directly attributable to changes in the varietal shares of the area under winter wheat than to the genealogical relationship between the varieties sown. We argue, therefore, that while genealogical indices reflect how well plant breeders have retained and exploited the resources with which they started, these indices suffer from a critical limitation. They do not reflect the proportion of the available range of genetic resources which has been effectively utilized in the breeding programme: complex crosses of a given set of varieties can yield high indices, and yet disguise the loss (or non-utilization) of a large proportion of the available genetic diversity.

Keywords

coefficient of parentagegenetic diversityplant breeding
Type
Research Article
Information
Plant Genetic Resources , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 2003 , pp. 43 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © NIAB 2003

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