MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State University researchers have published recent findings that highlight their discovery of a gene in ancient wheat that gives superior strength and elasticity to bread dough.
Liangliang Gao, a post-doctoral scientist in K-State’s Wheat Genetics Resource Center, said the work is part of a larger project involving research groups worldwide and spanning more than 50 years of collecting 242 unique accessions of Aegilops tauschii, a wild goatgrass that is one of the parent species of modern bread wheat and has a history that reaches nearly 10,000 years.
“The newly discovered lineage is pretty limited in geography, though it may have been more spread in the past,” said Gao, noting that Aegilops tauschii is primarily found in present-day Georgia in the Caucasus region that spans parts of Europe and Asia.
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