β-diketone accumulation in modern bread wheat varieties

Cuticular waxes coating leaf surfaces can help tolerate drought events by reducing non-stomatal water loss. Despite their role in drought tolerance, little is known about the cuticular wax responses of Canadian bread wheat varieties. To fill in this gap, RNAseq was performed on the flag leaf of four modern varieties to identify potential markers that could be used for selection of higher accumulation of cuticular waxes. This analysis revealed that the W1 locus is a good candidate for higher accumulation of β-diketones. We investigate the transcriptome of the flag leaf of four Canadian bread wheat modern varieties, with three replicates for each line.