Chromosome 3B of Triticum aestivum sequencing project. Triticum aestivum strain:Chinese Spring

Wheat is the staple food for 35% of the world population and is the most grown crop worldwide. Wheat genomics provides the foundation for a better understanding of the molecular basis of phenotypic variation, accelerating breeding and improving the exploitation of genetic diversity. The chromosomes of Triticum aestivum can be separated by flow-sorting. This has enabled development of chromosome-specific BAC libraries. Chromosome 3B is the largest wheat chromosome, almost twice the size of the entire rice genome. It has been physically mapped and the first draft of the sequence submitted to EMBL.