A major U.K. wheat research program is developing new germplasm with traits designed to address future challenges facing wheat production and make the material accessible to commercial crop breeders and the wider plant science community.
The BBSRC-funded Designing Future Wheat Institute Strategic Programme brings together eight research institutes and universities in a coordinated effort to develop the next generation of key wheat traits. The program includes more than 25 groups of scientists across Rothamsted Research, the John Innes Centre and the Earlham Institute, with additional contributions from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, the European Bioinformatics Institute and the universities of Bristol and Nottingham.
Researchers will make the new germplasm available in a readily accessible and referenced form for commercial crop breeders and the plant science community, supporting the development of future wheat varieties.
Wheat is one of the world's most important crops and is grown on more land than any other commercial crop. It currently provides about 20% of the total calories consumed by people worldwide each day.
As the global population approaches 10 billion people, most of the expected increase in food consumption is projected to occur in developing countries. The program anticipates that global wheat production will need to increase by 60% by 2050 to meet demand.
Because it can take 15 to 20 years for research advances to be incorporated into wheat varieties grown in farmers' fields, the Designing Future Wheat program is focused on addressing challenges that could affect wheat production in the coming decades.
The fully integrated national U.K. wheat research program combines expertise across multiple institutions to develop genetic resources intended to support future improvements in wheat production.
Source: John Innes Centre, "Designing Future Wheat"