Protecting The Sustainability Of UK Wheat

Scientists at Nottingham University are to play a key role in a new seven million pound research programme to help maintain the world’s production of wheat via a comprehensive pre-breeding programme. It will be the first study of its kind in the UK for 20 years. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has brought together a consortium of the UK’s leading scientists in wheat genetics and trait analysis to underpin and enhance wheat breeding activities here in the UK and internationally. Experts in the School of Biosciences will form part of this nationwide consortium, also involving the John Innes Centre, the University of Bristol, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) and Rothamsted Research. Wheat breeders in the UK and throughout the world are working on new varieties that can meet the challenges of food production in the 21st century. However, due to modern breeding practises there is not sufficient genetic variation in modern wheat varieties to obtain the increases in yield required to meet demand, climate change or environmental requirements - such as heat and drought tolerance, water use efficiency and nutrient use efficiency and also resistance to disease. The introduction of new genetic variation into wheat, for breeders to exploit, is therefore of critical importance for global food production which is currently six hundred million tonnes annually – second only to rice in total tonnage used for food in the world. Ian King, Professor of Cereal Genomics in the Department of Plant and Crop Sciences, said: “The world’s population is set to increase from seven to nine billion by 2040 to 2050 and it is predicted that we will have to produce 70 per cent more food than we do at present - just to maintain our present level of nutrition - which already includes one billion malnourished people and a further 100 million at near starvation level.” The increase in food production needs to be generated from the same amount of land area that we already farm. “One way for this to be achieved is through the production of new high yielding plant varieties that are adapted to global warming and environmentally friendly farming practises that result in less pollution (e.g. reduced fertiliser input),” Professor King added.