On Nov. 14, 2012, scientists from the U.S., United Kingdom and Germany announced they had completed the first analysis of the bread wheat genome, one of the “big three” global crops upon which mankind depends for nutrition.

The research involved identifying essentially all 94,000-96,000 wheat genes and mapping their relationships to other genes. The advance allowed scientists to accelerate breeding and discover new genes that control important traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance.