Transfer of recessive skr crossability trait into well-adapted French wheat cultivar Barok through marker-assisted backcrossing method**

In order to increase genetic diversity in cereals, interspecific or even intergeneric crosses are worthwhile, especially wheat by rye crosses for triticale production. However, these crosses often fail due to inhibiting genes. To overcome this obstacle, crossability trait, present in a few wheat cultivars, can be transferred into other wheat lines of agronomical interest. Nevertheless, this transfer remains tedious through conventional backcrossing methods because it is a recessive trait, which requires selfing generations and complex evaluation by many crosses. Here, we present a marker-assisted backcrossing method to transfer this trait more quickly and easily. We chose to introduce the recessive crossability skr, located on chromosome 5BS and originating from Asian wheat, into Barok, a non-crossable French wheat cultivar, with good agronomic characteristics. Six molecular markers, close to the Skr locus, were used to check the transfer of the gene at each of the three backcrosses, without selfing gener...