Wheat is a staple crop in Nepal and is the third major cereal crop grown across the country. To improve productivity and increase the number of farmers growing wheat, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), since 1962, has been releasing new wheat varieties with higher productivity and disease resistance. Accurate identification of the varieties grown in farmer's fields is critical for assessing the adoption levels and the impact of new varieties. This understanding can change the landscape of the wheat market and the overall vulnerability of the crop to diseases and abiotic stresses. Current methods of identification that rely on farmer description and morphological traits have been associated with ambiguity. The objective of this study was to determine the varietal adoption of wheat in the seven wheat-growing provinces of Nepal using DNA fingerprinting technology. The study revealed that 'Gautam' and 'Vijay' are the most popular wheat varieties planted in the plain areas of Nepal. The area covered in these varieties during the 2018-2019 wheat season was 20.3 and 19.5% respectively. 'WK1204' was popular and mostly planted in the mountainous areas of Nepal during the October-May cropping season. The decommissioned varieties, including 'Pitic62', 'Kalyansona', 'Siddhartha', 'Vaskar', 'Vinayak', and 'NL 251' are still in use by 8% of wheat farmers across Nepal. Almost 38% of the varieties currently grown were released 20 yr ago. The varietal adoption was determined using molecular markers through fingerprinting, and its implications are discussed in this paper.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) demand in Bangladesh has increased significantly in recent years, becoming the second major staple cereal after rice (Oryza sativa L.). Domestic production of wheat accounts for only 16% of domestic use. More than 30 wheat varieties have been released in the past 30 yr by the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI). In the last 10 yr alone, nine varieties with improved yield and disease resistance have been released. Bangladesh and the BWMRI lack the regulatory framework and infrastructure to accurately track the rate of adoption of these new releases. To determine the adoption of these varieties across the country, DNA fingerprinting of wheat samples was conducted across the six wheat growing regions in Bangladesh during the 2018–2019 cropping season. A reference library was established to compare and identify the wheat samples collected from farmers’ fields. Wheat grain samples collected from the fields and breeders’ lines were genotyped using Diversity Arrays Technology sequencing (DArTseq)‐based single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. Of the 1,791 samples collected from farmers’ fields, 68% were identified as varieties released after 2000 and 32% matched with older varieties. Among the varieties grown, BARI Gom 25 represented 29% of the collected samples followed by 23% of BARI Gom 24 and 16% of BARI Gom 26. These three most common varieties were well distributed across the six regions and have broad adoption.

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