Wuletaw Tadesse Degu

Wuletaw Tadesse Degu
Principal Scientist - Spring Bread Wheat Breeder

Dr. Wuletaw Tadesse Degu leads the spring bread wheat breeding program at ICARDA. Before joining the Center in 2010 he worked at CIMMYT as a postdoctoral wheat breeder and in the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute as a crop breeder. 

Dr. Tadesse’s research focuses on the development of widely adapted and high yielding wheat genotypes with resistance to major biotic (diseases and insects) and abiotic (drought and heat) stresses in sub-Saharan Africa and the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region. His program distributes more than 300 elite spring bread wheat genotypes on an annual basis through international nurseries to national agricultural research programs.  In the past five years alone, more than 60 ICARDA wheat varieties have been released by national programs in sub-Saharan Africa and CWANA.

Dr. Tadesse has published more than 30 articles in ISI journals, and supervised 15 master’s and Ph.D. students. He received his Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and his master’s degree from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.   

Wuletaw Tadesse Degu's Publications

Journal Article
December 01, 2022

Hessian fly (HF), Mayetiola destructor (Say) is an important pest of wheat in North Africa, North America, Southern Europe, Northern Kazakhstan, Northwestern China, and New Zealand. It can cause up to 30% yield losses and sometimes can result in...

Book
December 04, 2019

Wheat is the most widely adapted crop, growing in diverse environments ranging from sea
level to regions as high as 4570 m.a.s.l. in Tibet (Percival, 1921) and from the Arctic Circle
to the equator, but most suitably at the latitude range of 30°...

Book Chapter
September 14, 2016

Wheat is one of the most important staple crops of global food and nutritional security. The demand for wheat has been increasing substantially with the increasing human population pressure. Wheat genetic resources including crop wild relatives (CWRs...

Book Chapter
July 31, 2016

Wheat is the principal staple food in most countries of the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, accounting for 45% of the region’s per capita calorie intake with an average wheat consumption of about 200 kg/capita/year, which is...