Phenotypic data for the Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of the International Treaty Project Wheat Exchange Set

The study was conducted as part of International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) Project titled: “Improving food security by enhancing wheat production and its resilience to climate change through maintaining the diversity of currently grown landraces”. The project was successfully conducted in Iran and Turkey in 2015-2019 and had the following objectives:
1. Participatory selection of drought and heat tolerant wheat landraces among the set of the germplasm recently collected from the farming communities in the target countries using modern phenotyping and genotyping tools in collaboration with farming communities, research institutions, NGOs and extension services.
2. Development of germplasm combining drought and heat tolerance with disease resistance (primarily yellow rust and common as well as leaf and stem rust) through crosses, marker assisted selection and backcrossing to the landraces.
3. Promotion of selected drought and heat tolerant landraces in the targeted regions through enhanced on-farm seed production and bulk selection, improved agronomic practices and large scale awareness campaign.
4. Training of farmers, extension services and local administration, policy-makers, NGOs and researchers on sustainable cultivation of wheat landraces and role of biodiversity in mitigation of adverse effects of climate change.
Important part of the project activities was characterization of wheat 85 wheat landraces currently collected from Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey along with modern winter wheat germplasm adapted to irrigated and rainfed conditions and checks making the total 158 entries. The sets was thoroughly phenotyped for agronomic and physiological traits in Turkey (Konya, Ankara and Sakarya provinces) in 2018 and 2019 and in Iran (Maragheh) in 2019. The ITPGR requirement to the project was to make the data freely available through the Multilateral System. The phenotyping of the trial was supported by ITPGRFA Project No: W2B-PR-41-Turkey with funding from the European Union. CIMMYT-Turkey is supported by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Turkish Republic and CRP WHEAT. The file contained in this study provides both phenotypic and genotypic data for the landraces.