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Prof. dr Sofija Petrović, prof. dr Miodrag Dimitrijević and B. Sc. Nataša Vuković
Chair of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Department of Field and Vegetable Crops,Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad
UTILIZATION OF WHEAT GENETIC RESOURCES IN SAFETYFOOD PRODUCTION
Abstract
The development of agriculture has led to so called intensive production. That way yield has beenremarkable enhanced, but the problem of environmental pollution and soil erosion has been opened, aswell. Anyway, intensification in food production requires suitable wheat and other varieties, bred andselected under specific selection criteria. Spreading intensive varieties had significant loss of usablegenetic variability in consequence. In a past few decades the awareness of the importance of environmental and biodiversity preservation, as well as, necessity of safety food production has grownrapidly. The utilization of wheat and other genetic resources, particularly local populations andlandraces in organic agriculture is an important part of that environmentaly and safety sound production.
 Key words: wheat, biodiversity, environment, agriculture
INTRODUCTION
Cereals play an important role in a human’s diet. The wheat is one of two the mostagriculturally used crops in cereals. In Vojvodina, the flat agriculturally developed northern part of Serbia, wheat is the most utilized crop in a sowing structure, to the point to beconsidered as a strategic cultivar. In recent times wheat, as well as, other cereals has been
 
vastly demanded in safety food stores being considered as a diet of favorable influence tohuman health (Dimitrijević and Petrović, 2006).The most utilized wheat varieties of today belong to class of hexaploid wheat (
Triticumaestivum ssp. vulgare
) having three genomes and 42 chromosomes. Hexaploid wheat had been originated from spontaneous hybridization of diploid (14 chromosomes) and later tetraploid (28 chromosomes) wheat with goat grass (
 Aegilops sp
.). The steady selection pressure of the same selection criteria in wheat breeding programs commonly led to geneticvariability narrowing. Species of 
 Aegilops
genus played a remarkable role not only in wheatevolution, but also as a useful source for broadening genetic variability in wheat havingchromosomes and chromosomal regions homologous to wheat genetic background (Petrovićand Dimitrijević, 2006). Generally, endangered biodiversity, namely wild relatives,landraces, local populations etc., well adapted to the regional climate could be considered asvery important not only in biodiversity preservation
 per se
, but also in utilization inmodern,intensive, as well as, organic, safety food production.
MAN NATURAL MANNER IS TO UNNATURALLY PRESS PLANT
In the history of wheat breeding the turn over point happened in 1868. That year, inScotland, in the field of wheat population Victoria, Shirreff selected subpopulation namedSquarehead. At the end of XIX century emerging Dutch wheat breeding combining wheatfrom British isle with local populations obtained variety Spijk from combinationSquarehead x Zeeuwse Witte, and later on variety Wilhelmina from cross Spijk xSquarehead. The vast number of modern European wheat varieties originated out from thesecrosses. British selection and Dutch wheat breeding from mid XIX to the beginning of XXcentury laid foundation for modern wheat breeding. The consequences were the
varietiesadapted tomodern agricultural production concept 
, and
biodiversity erosion
. 
Varieties adapted to modern agricultural production concept 
. At the beginning of XXcentury the agricultural production shifted its concept from self-sufficiency to marketoriented production. That was the period of introducing not only bred wheat varieties, butalso corn hybrids. At that time first seed companies were formed. Regardless of whether themoving force had been “to feed hungry”, or simply “the profit”, the relations andrequirements in agriculture started to change. Consequently, two goals in wheat breadinghave been shaped – high yield and stability.
 High yield 
. The first requirement of the market oriented production is a high yield.For that goal it was necessary to bred varieties capable for overproduction. Luxurious seed production is not natural way of behaving for any plant, wheat included. Natural behaving iseconomical seed production in a way of using available natural resources and environmentalconditions. Man could not change environmental conditions concerning weather, but couldintervene in a part of environmental conditions related to soil and available resources to a plant. That is called intensification in agricultural production, and through so called “green
 
revolution” has led to intensive agriculture of today. Agriculture highly mechanized,depending on energy and chemicals, in many cases under irrigation that greatly influencedglobal damage of the environment. On the other hand, the requirement of unnatural behavior such is luxurious seed production, made change of the wheat phenotype as a necessity. Therelations between sink (generative part of the plant, namely spike) and source (vegetative part) became selection criteria in wheat breading. The reduction of height from over 100cm,to 60-80cm was the result improving the translocation of assimilative from vegetative togenerative part of the wheat plant, and enhancing the yield. That was not the only change inwheat phenotype, but was a cardinal one. As the result new “intensive” or high yieldingwheat varieties has become more and more different that their ancestors (wild relatives,local populations and landraces) and highly dependent on man.
Stability
. The yield has to be not only high, but also to keep that level throughseasons, as smooth as possible. To achieve that, the important goal of wheat breeding has been to diminish genotype by environment interaction. That is another unnatural reactionman requires from plant in agriculture to satisfy his needs. Common reaction of plant, andmost of the organisms living free in natural surrounding is quite opposite – higher GEinteraction that let better adaptability. The natural behavior is adaptation to variantenvironmental conditions in order to reproduce and to pass genetic information to the nextgeneration. Every organism in nature, plants included, has one and only goal – to make progeny. For plants it means – seed. When environmental conditions are favorable,reproduction is better, when conditions are at minimum level, plant tends not only to survive but also to reproduce at minimum. Passing hereditary information is the most important task in the Universe. But that rational and understandable natural behavior is against man’seconomical interest. Consequently, requirements for “domestic plants” in agriculture,namely cultivars are high and stable yield, in the other words GE interaction as small as possible. To achieve that, small GE interaction ought to be selection criteria in breeding, andagricultural production ought to be as “intensive” as possible. Paradigm for that aregenetically modified organisms.
 Biodiversity erodion
. According to FAO, seventy five percent of original plant specieshas been irreversibly lost since 1900, in a consequence of agricultural intensification. Thatloss is not only in genetic variability, but also in knowledge and experience that followed allthese lost species. To paraphrase Moony (2001), our generation is the first in the history of the World facing the fact that loss of knowledge is greater than obtainment. In a wheat production einkorn, emmer wheat, landraces and local populations retreated in front of intensive varieties selected in breeding programs. Wheat populations well adapted to localenvironmental conditions with small requirements gave not high but economical yieldhaving in mind input/output ratio. The withdrawal of these populations was gradual andunequal. In flat areas, suitable for agricultural production, landraces and local populationswere extinct till the Second World War (Dimitrijević and Petrović, 2004). In mountainregions of the Balkans, landraces and local wheat populations of different species (einkorn,emmer,
T. turgidum
,
T. durum, T. vulgare
) existed until mid 70’s of XX century, and last
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