Current Status of National Winter Wheat Breeding in Turkey

T. Akar, S. Yazar, E. Dönmez, M. Avcý and F. Düþünceli

Abstract
Turkey with 21 million ton production is one of the most important wheat producing countries in the world. Winter-type bread and durum wheat cultivation are predominant through Trace Region, Central and Eastern Anatolia and Transitional Zones. Wheat improvement has long history in winter zones of the country and a lot of winter type bread and durum wheat cultivars suitable for winter zones of the country have been developed by different institutes during the last 20 years. Some of these (Ikizce 96, Pehlivan, Yakar, Altay-2000, Kýzýltan and C-1252) have replaced the commonly cultivated cultivars (Bezostaja-1 , Gerek-79 and Kunduru-1149) due to their higher yield (10-15 %), quality levels (441-447 bread volume and 10- 15 semolina colour) and resistance to yellow rust (0-20 MS). Especially newly developed some hard and soft white bread wheat cultivars (Tosunbey and Bayraktar) and a durum wheat cultivar (Mirzabey) are widely demanded by the milling, macaroni and burger industries by their 15-20 percent higher yield level, 0-10 MS yellow rust resistance and higher bread volume and semolina colour. After acceptances of Royalty Laws in Turkey in 2004, a new period was started for wheat breeding. Some structural changes are going to be made to increase efficiency of wheat breeding studies through the country. In this paper, success in wheat breeding programmes under rainfed conditions in general and CRIFC’s wheat breeding programmes in particular, are going to be summarized.

Keywords: Winter wheat; cultivars; agronomic characters; Turkey.

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