Hordeum chilense is a wild species, native to Chile and small area in Argentina, which has been successfully crossed with diploid, tetraploid and hexaploid wheats and the intergeneric amphiploids obtained from them have been named tritordeums. Hexaploid tritordeum can be used as bridge species to introgress genetic material from this wild barley into durum wheat. Addition lines of H. chilense on tetraploid wheat have been also obtained with this purpose. Canopy photosynthesis may be improved by optimizing leaf architecture and the distribution of the photosynthetic apparatus in the canopy.