There is a need to increase wheat productivity to meet the food demands of the ever-growing human population. However, accelerated development of high yielding varieties is hindered by drought, which is worsening due to climate change. In this context, germplasm diversity is central to the development of drought-tolerant wheat. Extensive collections of these genetic resources are conserved in national and international genebanks. In addition to phenotypic assessments, the use of advanced molecular techniques (e.g., genotype by sequencing) to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for drought tolerance related traits is useful for genome- and marker-assisted selection based approaches. Therefore, to assist wheat breeders at a critical time, we searched the recent peer-reviewed literature (2011-current), first, to identify wheat germplasm observed to be useful genetic sources for drought tolerance, and second, to report QTLs associated with drought tolerance. Though many breeders limit the parents used in breeding programs to a familiar core collection, the results of this review show that larger germplasm collections have been sources of useful genes for drought tolerance in wheat. The review also demonstrates that QTLs for drought tolerance in wheat are associated with diverse physio-morphological traits, at different growth stages. Here, we also briefly discuss the potential of genome engineering/editing to improve drought tolerance in wheat. The use of CRISPR-Cas9 and other gene-editing technologies can be used to fine-tune the expression of genes controlling drought adaptive traits, while high throughput phenotyping (HTP) techniques can potentially accelerate the selection process. These efforts are empowered by wheat researcher consortia.

需要提高小麦的生产力，以满足不断增长的人口的粮食需求。但是，干旱阻碍了高产品种的加速发展，干旱由于气候变化而恶化。在这种情况下，种质多样性对耐旱小麦的发展至关重要。这些遗传资源的广泛收集在国家和国际种质库中得到保存。除了表型评估，使用先进的分子技术（例如，通过测序的基因型）来鉴定抗旱相关性状的数量性状基因座（QTL）对于基于基因组和标记辅助选择的方法很有用。因此，为了在关键时刻帮助小麦育种者，我们检索了最近的同行评审文献（2011年至今），首先，鉴定观察到的小麦种质是耐旱的有用遗传资源，其次，报告与耐旱性相关的QTL。尽管许多育种者将育种程序中使用的亲本限制为熟悉的核心种，但本综述的结果表明，较大的种质收藏已成为小麦抗旱性有用基因的来源。该评价还表明，小麦在不同生长阶段的耐旱性的QTL与多种生理形态特征有关。在这里，我们还简要讨论了基因工程/编辑提高小麦抗旱性的潜力。CRISPR-Cas9和其他基因编辑技术的使用可用于微调控制干旱适应性状的基因的表达，而高通量表型（HTP）技术可能会加速选择过程。这些努力得到了小麦研究者联合会的支持。