Accumulation of mutations in the homoeologs causes suppression of anther extrusion with altered spike and culm development in hexaploid wheat.

Unlabelled: Cleistogamy or closed flowering is a widely used trait in barley () breeding because it reduces the risk of fungal infection in florets at anthesis. Cleistogamy in barley is caused by a point mutation within the microRNA172 (miR172) target site of the gene, which encodes the Apetala2 (AP2) transcription factor. Because cleistogamy is not apparent in cultivars of hexaploid wheat (), a strategy to develop cleistogamous wheat was proposed by inducing point mutations in all three homoeologs, which are the wheat orthologs of barley .

Mutations within the miR172 target site of wheat homoeologs regulate lodicule size and rachis internode length.

Closed fertilization in flowers, or cleistogamy, reduces the risk of fungal infection in Triticeae crops. In barley (), cleistogamy is determined by a single recessive gene, , which results from a single nucleotide polymorphism within the microRNA172 target site of the () transcription factor gene. The recessive allele negatively regulates the development of lodicules, keeping florets closed at anthesis.