Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on April 13, 2005
Journal of Heredity 2005 96(4):455-459; doi:10.1093/jhered/esi060
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Brief Communication |
The Transfer and History of "Reduced Height Genes" (Rht) in Wheat from Japan to Europe
From the Faculty of Natural Science (emerita), University of Novi Sad, Serbia and Monte Negro (Katarina Borojevic) and the Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-3350 (Ksenija Borojevic)
Address correspondence to Ksenija Borojevic at the address above, or e-mail: borojevi{at}uab.edu.
Wheat is the main crop and often a strategic crop in many European countries. From a historical perspective, we describe the transfer of "reduced height genes" (Rht genes) from Japanese wheat varieties to wheat varieties in Europe and their influence on the increase of the total wheat production in the last century. Historic pathways of Rht genes were influenced directly or indirectly by wheat breeders exchanging seed samples and by some governments importing large quantities of wheat during historically critical periods for their countries.