Registration of 'FL16045-25': An early-maturing, high-yielding, disease-resistant soft red facultative wheat cultivar for the southern United States

'FL16045-25' (Reg. no. CV-1207, PI 704484), a soft red, facultative doubled-haploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar, was developed and tested as FL16045DH-25 by the University of Florida and released in October 2022. FL16045-25 was derived from the cross MD07W478-14-5/GA06112-13EE16. It is well adapted from Texas to Virginia and provides producers with an early-season, facultative (Vrn-A1_short), medium-height, awned, semi-dwarf (Rht2) cultivar that has high yield potential, good straw strength, good grain volume weight, and good end-use quality. It expresses moderate-to-high levels of resistance to most diseases prevalent in the southern United States. Molecular marker analysis confirms the presence of Sbm1, Yr17/Lr37/Sr38, Lr18, Sr36/Pm6, Pm54, and Pm1a-linked disease-resistant genes. The yield average of FL16045-25 from 41 environments during 2020-2022 ranged from 4211 to 5782 kg ha-1, which is competitive with check cultivars that are widely used in the southern part of the United States. The grain volume weight of FL16045-25 ranged from 749 to 785 kg m-3 (32 environments), which was higher than most of the checks. FL16045-25 has soft grain texture with softness equivalence varying from 51.3% to 59.3% and sodium carbonate solvent retention capacity (SRC) ranging from 66.8% to 68.5%. Flour yields on a Quadrumat Senior milling system varied from 68.7% to 69.5%. Flour protein content varied from 8.9% to 9.1%. Cookie spread diameter varied from 19.4 to 19.5 cm. The presence of TaSus2-2B, Sucrose Synthase2 gene on 2B or 2G:2B, was confirmed by marker analysis. FL16045-25 is an early-maturing, facultative, medium-height wheat cultivar broadly adapted to the southern United States. FL16045-25 has high yield potential and good straw strength, grain volume weight, and end-use quality. FL16045-25 demonstrated moderate-to-high levels of resistance to most diseases prevalent in the southern United States. Molecular marker analysis confirms the presence of Sbm1, Yr17/Lr37/Sr38, Lr18, Sr36/Pm6, Pm54, and Pm1a genes. It has above-average resistance to Fusarium head blight disease.