In the first year of this new ACIAR project on waterlogging, salinity and element tolerance of wheat, both Indian and Australian partners have successfully conducted field and controlled environment trials, exchanged and developed new germplasm, developed soil characterisation protocols, characterised germplasm to abiotic and biotic stresses, and identified further adaptive traits relevant to key interacting constraints in target environments. All work in India has been delayed by one year due to the late project start, however there is good progress towards achievement of milestones and project outputs.
The activities and outputs of this project have undergone small changes ever since the final stages of project approval; this is summarised in Sections 2 and 6 and detailed in Appendix 1. These changes will not affect the overall project aim of development of "elite germplasm" or the budget. In fact in several respects they have helped to streamline the project and focus work on the key objective of production of elite germplasm.
A key research strategy of this project is the formation of multi-disciplinary teams of physiologists, soil scientists, pathologists and breeders. These teams are now established at CSSRI, NDUAT, DWR, UA and DAFWA. Good progress has been made across project activities by these teams (Section 2 and Appendix 1) and as detailed by reports from each of the key project scientists (see individual reports in Appendix 2).
A second research strategy of this project is the comparison and development of new germplasm through two methods of Single Seed Descent (SSD) and Doubled Haploid (DH) production - this approach is well on track with populations now selected for the diverse environments targeted in India and Australia. The overall benefit of this analysis is that if the SSD approach is shown to be successful, then this frees up Indian partners from dependence on use of DH populations which until now have come largely from Australia and not been easily available in India. Trials in India have only just been harvested, so the analyses of experiments is still in progress (Appendix 2). A 2-page pictorial summary of project highlights in 2009/2010 is given in Appendix 3.
Germplasm exchange was first requested at the beginning of 2009, but this was unsuccessful until Dr. S.S. Singh, Project Director, DWR, provided the key support in 2010. This has now enabled crossing to be initiated in Australian Plant Quarantine in June, 2010.
There have been several publications relating to this work including aspects of soil characterisation, physiology and germplasm improvement (Section 3.4). Work is also currently under preparation for presentation at scientific meetings in 2010/2011 including the 8th International Wheat Conference (Russia), the 19th World Congress on Soil Science (Australia) and the International Society of Plant Anaerobiosis (Italy).
One of the most exciting aspects of this work is the support for extension of activities for development of molecular markers described at the Indo-Australian Program on Marker-Assisted Wheat Breeding (IAP-MAWB) meeting in New Delhi in 2010. This work is supported based on years of relevant data, development of unique populations (some of which have been mapped) and demonstration of the increasing importance of diverse element toxicities as a major factor affecting waterlogging tolerance in field environments (Section 8, point 5 and Appendix 3). Currently a Letter of Variation is under preparation to extend project work in line with IAP-MAWB activities.

In the first year of this new ACIAR project on waterlogging, salinity and element tolerance of wheat, both Indian and Australian partners have successfully conducted field and controlled environment trials, exchanged and developed new germplasm, developed soil characterisation protocols, characterised germplasm to abiotic and biotic stresses, and identified further adaptive traits relevant to key interacting constraints in target environments. All work in India has been delayed by one year due to the late project start, however there is good progress towards achievement of milestones and project outputs.
The activities and outputs of this project have undergone small changes ever since the final stages of project approval; this is summarised in Sections 2 and 6 and detailed in Appendix 1. These changes will not affect the overall project aim of development of "elite germplasm" or the budget. In fact in several respects they have helped to streamline the project and focus work on the key objective of production of elite germplasm.
A key research strategy of this project is the formation of multi-disciplinary teams of physiologists, soil scientists, pathologists and breeders. These teams are now established at CSSRI, NDUAT, DWR, UA and DAFWA. Good progress has been made across project activities by these teams (Section 2 and Appendix 1) and as detailed by reports from each of the key project scientists (see individual reports in Appendix 2).
A second research strategy of this project is the comparison and development of new germplasm through two methods of Single Seed Descent (SSD) and Doubled Haploid (DH) production - this approach is well on track with populations now selected for the diverse environments targeted in India and Australia. The overall benefit of this analysis is that if the SSD approach is shown to be successful, then this frees up Indian partners from dependence on use of DH populations which until now have come largely from Australia and not been easily available in India. Trials in India have only just been harvested, so the analyses of experiments is still in progress (Appendix 2). A 2-page pictorial summary of project highlights in 2009/2010 is given in Appendix 3.
Germplasm exchange was first requested at the beginning of 2009, but this was unsuccessful until Dr. S.S. Singh, Project Director, DWR, provided the key support in 2010. This has now enabled crossing to be initiated in Australian Plant Quarantine in June, 2010.
There have been several publications relating to this work including aspects of soil characterisation, physiology and germplasm improvement (Section 3.4). Work is also currently under preparation for presentation at scientific meetings in 2010/2011 including the 8th International Wheat Conference (Russia), the 19th World Congress on Soil Science (Australia) and the International Society of Plant Anaerobiosis (Italy).
One of the most exciting aspects of this work is the support for extension of activities for development of molecular markers described at the Indo-Australian Program on Marker-Assisted Wheat Breeding (IAP-MAWB) meeting in New Delhi in 2010. This work is supported based on years of relevant data, development of unique populations (some of which have been mapped) and demonstration of the increasing importance of diverse element toxicities as a major factor affecting waterlogging tolerance in field environments (Section 8, point 5 and Appendix 3). Currently a Letter of Variation is under preparation to extend project work in line with IAP-MAWB activities.

In this second year of project research on waterlogging, salinity and element tolerance of wheat, Indian and Australian project scientists have successfully conducted experiments in pot, microplot, field station and farmers' fields; exchanged, developed and initiated new crosses including Single Seed Descent and Doubled Haploid populations; identified detailed element constraints (deficiencies and toxicities) of soils from our target environments; and begun to confirm the significance of adaptive traits to individual constraints, e.g. bicarbonate/carbonate tolerance, to grain yield in the field.
Appendices and one attachment to this Report provide detailed information on progress for the period of 2010/11:
Appendix 1: Detailed achievements against activities and outputs/milestones.
Appendix 2: Detailed reports from project scientists.
Appendix 3. Selected photographs summarising research highlights and challenges for 2010/11.
Appendix 4: Letter of Variation to ACIAR Project CIM/2006/177 (new MAS work)
Attachment: Experiment Information Sheet (EIS) documents 2010/11
Multi-disciplinary teams of breeders, physiologists and soil scientists are performing well at partner institutions located at CSSRI, NDUAT, DWR, UA and DAFWA. Abbreviations: CSSRI, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (Karnal, India); DWR, Directorate of Wheat Research (Karnal, India); DAFWA, Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (South Perth, WA); NDUAT, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology (Faizabad, UP, India); UA, University of Adelaide (Adelaide, SA); MdU, Murdoch University (Murdoch, WA). During this period a new major activity was also developed, approved and initiated with Murdoch University (MdU) being: "Letter of Variation for ACIAR Project CIM/2006/177: MAS for waterlogging, salinity and element tolerance of wheat in India and Australia (part of the Indo-Australian Program on Marker-Assisted Wheat Breeding (IAP-MAWB))." This activity now makes our project consistent with other ACIAR projects in the IAP-MAWB, and it captures the benefits of extensive phenotyping and genotyping capacities in the project (Appendix 4). A comprehensive list of all experimental work by each project scientist is presented in the Attachment: Experiment Information Sheet (EIS) documents 2010/11.
In India, screening protocols in pots, microplots and field station trials have confirmed the ability to validate results using these diverse approaches at CSSRI (Appendix 2(2)). At NDUAT, farmers' field trials (Appendix 2(5)) have confirmed field station results and they have also identified and confirmed theoretical predictions from UA of Zn deficiencies in some soils at high pH (Appendix 2(7)). DWR has led the coordination of running bi-plot experiments in five locations/environments through collaboration of all Indian partners. Such measurements are still being calculated, and they will be helpful in evaluating the genetic variation of diverse Indian and Australian germplasm and help identify potential parental material for breeding programs. DWR also leads project research to characterise parental material and develop germplasm with abiotic stress tolerance for selected disease resistance including stripe rust, leaf rust and Karnal bunt resistance.
In Australia, work at UA focuses on characterisation of germplasm for tolerance to bicarbonate/carbonate and demonstration that this trait is significantly correlated to grain yields of wheat varieties in the field in alkaline sodic soils with pH>9. Supporting work on soils continues to develop methods for measurement of element toxicities (Al) relevant to low and high pH soils, and deficiencies (Ca, Mg and Zn) in soils at high pH. These approaches now need to be taken up by Indian partners - this will be discussed at the upcoming AGM in 2011.
At DAFWA the waterlogging tolerance screening facility at Katanning has been improved with remote webcam monitoring and with frost resistant canopies; the latter followed devastating experimental losses last year due to severe frost - the first time this has occurred in the last 10 years. Germplasm development at DAFWA included (i) rust screening a large SSD population in collaboration with ACIAR supported scientists at Australian Cereal Rust Control Program (ACRCP), Cobbitty, NSW; and (ii) development of crosses for new DH populations based on the best parents from India and Australia identified for tolerance to waterlogging, salinity and element toxicities: KRL99/Krichauff and KRL99/Tammarin Rock (see Appendix 3, Plate 10, for photographs).
A large number of presentations of project work have been made in this year with 16 publications from project scientists in journals or scientific publications.