Wheat, in conjunction with rice and maize, constitutes one of the three most significant staple crops worldwide, sustaining over 40% of the global population. In Korea, the annual per capita wheat consumption exceeds 30 kg, totaling approximately 4 million tons nationwide. However, more than 95% of this demand is met through imports, resulting in a meager self-sufficiency rate of approximately 0.7%, raising concerns regarding supply stability and price fluctuations. Enhancing wheat self-sufficiency in Korea requires addressing yield reductions caused by abiotic stressors, including elevated temperatures, drought, cold damage and pre-harvest sprouting induced by climate change, as well as biotic stressors such as Fusarium head blight. The development of high-quality wheat varieties with superior processing characteristics that satisfy consumer demands is crucial. This study provides critical insights for future research on the development of novel wheat cultivars in Korea. It reviews the current state of wheat cultivation and production, environmental and biological factors affecting growth, compositional elements influencing quality, domestic cultivars developed through conventional crossbreeding currently in commercial distribution, and contemporary breeding trends, with particular emphasis on novel breeding technologies, such as biotechnology.

The global area of GM Crops continued to grow in 2018 and reached 191.7 million hectares. Twenty-six countries approved biotech crops for planting and an additional 44 countries (18 + 26 EU countries) officially imported biotech crops for food, feed, and processing, meaning that biotech crops are now commonly accepted in those countries. First-generation GM seed is being commercialized by global agricultural companies in advanced countries such as the United States and parts of Europe. The fact that more than 90% of first-generation GM seeds, which have been commercialized for 20 years, are both insect resistant and herbicide resistant proves that they continue to have an effect on improving agricultural productivity and increasing farmers' incomes. As the effectiveness of GM crops has been proven and technology has been developed, the GM crop development trend has recently changed. In other words, it has moved from being producer-oriented to benefiting both farmers and consumers. In Korea, the National Program for GM Crops (NCGC), one of the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Programs organized by Rural Development Administration (RDA), was established in 2011 to develop biotech crops that will be used in the future to solve our agricultural problems. To accomplish this mission, the NCGC carried out the exploration of useful functional genes, the development of qualified events, and the safety assessment of developed events. Here, we introduce the current status of GM crop development and commercialization in the world and in Korea.

Recently, several attempts have been undertaken to develop breeding technologies by combining new biotechnologies. Gene-editing technology is currently one of the most interesting areas. The plant breeding methods using this technique have the advantage of greatly improved accuracy and efficiency of the plant genetic correction compared with conventional breeding methods, which has raised expectations for the useful application of this technology as a cutting-edge breeding technology. Although not all countries around the world currently have established appropriate regulation policies on crops developed with gene-editing technology, the number of cases in which GMO regulations are not applied on a case-by-case basis according to the scientific background is growing. However, Korea has not yet established policies on which criteria should be applied to crops generated from the application of gene-editing technology. As the number of cases of crop development and commercialization using gene-editing technology is expected to increase in the near future, it will be necessary to prepare reasonable policies to support developers and seed industries in Korea to ensure harmonization with international regulatory policy trends.

In recent years, new plant breeding technologies (NPBT) have had enormous effects on breeding and the agricultural industry. In particular, genome editing technology, including site-directed nuclease technologies, has progressed dramatically since the first-generation Zinc finger nucleases to the third-generation clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9). CRISPR/Cas9 technology has yielded a revolutionary breakthrough in the accurate, efficient, and user-friendly genome editing of eukaryotes. Several methods for basic research and applications, such as knock-out, base editing, gene targeting, and transcriptional activation or repression have been derived from CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Herein, we will describe the current progress in NPBTs and also summarize the crops developed by NPBTs. After analyzing the current status of NPBTs and crop development, we have proposed potential strategies for crop development using NPBTs.

Seed dormancy is an important adaptive mechanism to protect seeds under the unfavorable environments. Unlike to wild type species, the seed dormancy trait of cultivated crops has been weakened by breeding programs during the domestication period. Weak seed dormancy often causes preharvest sprouting (PHS) problem in many cereal crops that result in significant economic loss. The seed dormancy is a quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlled by multiple genetic and environmental factors. So far, many QTLs for seed dormancy have been identified from rice and wheat as well as in the model plant Arabidopsis. Unveiling of QTL genes and complex mechanisms underlying seed dormancy is accelerated by the rapid progress of crop genomics. In the present study, we reviewed current status of research progress on the seed dormancy QTLs and correlated genes in Arabidopsis and cereal crops.