Empowering Wheat Cultivation with GIS, Digital Approaches and Artificial Intelligence

The global population is projected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, leading to imminent food shortages not only for the current but also future generations. Anticipated increases in appetite coming 50 years will pose significant challenges to food production. This demand will exert additional pressure on agriculture for the escalating need for food. On one hand, research indicates a 60% increase in food production is necessary to accommodate the projected 9 billion people, on the other hand, a substantial portion of the population is grappling with various micronutrient deficiencies, such as iron, zinc, iodine, vitamin A, and folic acid, a condition referred to as "hidden hunger." Hence, it is imperative to exert substantial efforts towards developing improved cultivars under enhanced technological conditions.

Concerns about climate change are anticipated to profoundly affect soil water availability, carbon storage, and crop yields. Droughts in the Mediterranean and Africa are expected to worsen during certain seasons. Each year, climate change leads to substantial losses in agricultural production, with a worsening scenario in the future.

Wheat breeding has witnessed significant advancements with the wheat genomics, whole-genome sequencing, high-throughput phenotyping, genome-editing technologies, and marker-assisted breeding. These enable genome-based breeding to produce higher enough yielding by 2050. Speed breeding has a crucial role in the incorporation of new genes into breeding pipelines, facilitating the creation of innovative homozygous advanced lines, and accelerating the identification and functional characterization of new genes.

Climate change and recent technological advancements necessitate efficient utilization of remote sensing, digital tools, and artificial intelligence approaches, have gained prominence in wheat agriculture. This book aims to encompass both past and upcoming research activities in this domain. It serves as a valuable resource for wheat breeders interested in leveraging modern data technologies in their research endeavours.

Nusret Zencirci, a Çukurova University graduate, worked as a wheat breeder in Central Research Institute for Field Crops, Ankara and served as National and International Coordinator to wheat programs. He was a molecular biology professor at Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University, Türkiye. He is a member of various editorial boards, breeder of twenty-two wheat cultivars. His research interests are cereals, biotic and abiotic stresses, and plant genetic resources. 
FaheemShehzad Baloch is plant genetics and genomics Professor at Mersin University, Türkiye, with a dissertation on ‘QTL mapping in wheat’. He has more than ten years of teaching and research experience. He contributed to projects and co-supervised MSC, PhD and postdoc candidates. He has over 120 WOS publications, co-edited 6 books and written over fourteen book chapters. He has over 3800 google scholar citations (h-Index of thirty-two. He serves as editorial board member of many impacted journals in WOS.
Jin-Ying Gou, a China Agricultural University professor, has more than ten years of teaching and research experience in wheat genetics, metabolomics, and biotechnology. He led many projects. He supervised over 30 MSC, PhD, and postdoc candidates. He is serving as an Editorial Board member for BMC Plant Biology, Molecular Breeding, and Wheat Omics. He has more than 40 SCI publications in WOS and over three thousand in Google Scholar.
Velimir Mladenov, an University of Novi Sad, Serbia professor, currently coordinates Horizon Europe project called ClimaPannonia and develops global expertise collaborations –such as COST actions, where he serves in ReCrop: Reproductive Enhancement of CROP resilience to extreme climate CA22157 as a Science Communication Coordinator. He supervises seven Serbian and Kazakhstan PhD and some MSc and BSc students. He has published widely in the areas of crop genetics, plant breeding in wheat and corn mostly.

Sotirios Fragkostefanakis, a heat stress biologist, leads the Plant Molecular and Cell Biology group at Goethe University Frankfurt. Over the past decade, he has coordinated and contributed to international research initiatives, being the Chair of the COST Action RECROP. His group utilizes advanced approaches in transcriptomics, proteomics, and genome engineering, with a strong emphasis on tomato as a model system. He has authored over forty peer-reviewed publications. 
Marta da Silva Sabino Lopes, head of the Sustainable Field Crops Program at the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) in Lleida, Spain. She has led efforts to automate and digitize breeding pipelines and phenotyping protocols across multiple experimental stations, significantly improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of large-scale research programs. She has authored over 50 SCI-indexed publications, contributed to book chapters, and participates in national and EU-funded projects. She currently supervises seven Ph.D. students and a postdoctoral.
Ephrem Habyarimana leading ICRISAT sorghum breeding with more than 25 years of experience in sorghum science, genetics, and plant breeding, he integrates diverse technologies and skills i.e., agroecological and genomic modelling, big data analytics e.g., phenomics, genomics for the sustainable, resilient, cost-effective, environment and biodiversity friendly crop improvement. He was the finalist for the 2019 European DataSci & Artificial Intelligence Awards.

Hakan Ulukan is a graduate of Ankara University, Türkiye. He serves in Field Crops Department in Ankara, Spain, Bosna-Herzegovina at the Erasmus+ Universities at various levels. He also contributes various high-impact scientific national and international journals’ at different levels. Meantime, stress types on field crops, plant genetic resources, and wheat land races are among his interests.
Asuman Kaplan Evlice, an Associate Professor at Sivas University of Science and Technology, Türkiye, is specialized in quality. She has published articles and authored book chapters on cereal technology and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, she supervises graduates in agricultural sciences. Her experience contains programs and scholarships in Germany and Italy. She researched in food science, plant breeding, and agricultural technology.