An important step in utilizing gene banks is defining manageable subsets of materials representative of the larger germplasm collection. A manageable reference set is the one which breeders can precisely evaluate for their trait(s) of interest.

The MasAgro Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) project aims to characterize all the accessions in the Wheat Germplasm Bank (~120,000) and move the unexploited variation into the breeding pipelines. This is being followed by genotyping using DArTseq technology which provides a platform for genotyping thousands of accessions, coupled with high throughput phenotyping. This subset consists of diverse materials as determined by DArTseq data, with outstanding yellow endosperm.

Source: CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm Bank