Transfer of Salt Tolerance from Elytrigia pontica (Podp.) Holub to Wheat by the Addition of an Incomplete Elytrigia Genome¹

Elytrigia pontica , (Podp.) Holub, 2 n = 10x=70, was previously shown to be highly salt‐tolerant. In an attempt to incorporate this salt tolerance into wheat ( Triticum aestivum L., 2 n =6x=42), E. pontica was hybridized with three wheat accessions that showed relatively good salt tolerance. A large number of hybrid derivatives were produced. Most had aneu‐ or eudecaploid chromosome numbers. A few had aneuploid or euoctoploid or aneuhexaploid or euhexaploid chromosome numbers. The salt tolerance of E. pontica was expressed in derivatives at both the octoploid and decaploid levels. In an attempt to select salt‐tolerant derivatives with a low number of Elytrigia chromosomes, an hypooctoploid family was selected that had salt tolerance superior to the wheat parent. These salt‐tolerant plants had five complete chromosomes and a telosome from E. pontica in addition to the complete wheat chromosome complement.