Three new drought-tolerant wheat cultivars have been bred in Turkey

Specialists of the Cereal Breeding Program at the Faculty of Agriculture of Kırşehir Ahi Evran University have developed candidate cultivars capable of yielding more than 850–900 kilograms per decar. The work has been carried out for more than ten years, taking into account local soil and climatic conditions, and in the future these cultivars are planned to be widely cultivated in Central Anatolia and other arid regions.

Dean of the Faculty Professor Selahattin Çınar reported that during regional trials at the university's research fields, 20 candidate variants were compared with standard cultivars, and three of them stood out due to their yield. In the coming years, applications for registration will be phased in and submitted to the Seed Registration and Certification Center under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Upon completion of registration, the seed will be propagated and transferred to farmers.

The bread wheat crossing program started in 2013 under the leadership of Associate Professor of the Department of Field Crops Ramazan Ayrancı. From 1,6 thousand lines, the researchers selected 20 for their resistance to winter cold, summer heat, erratic precipitation, and local conditions. According to Ayrancı, the results have been achieved through 12 years of continuous labor, and breeding cultivars for arid territories and areas with fallow fields presents great difficulty compared to irrigated lands.