Food Security & Safety
132
Breeding bread
CASE STUDY
Background
The world over, cereal grains are essential to daily life.
However, wheat production worldwide is under threat
from climate change and an increase in demand from
a growing human population. It is predicted that within
the next 40 years world food production will need to
be increased by 50%. Developing new, low input,
high yielding varieties of wheat will be fundamental to
meeting these goals.
The project
Liverpool scientists, in collaboration with the University
of Bristol and the John Innes Centre, have decoded
the genome of wheat – the largest genome to be
sequenced to date – to help crop breeders increase
the yield of British wheat varieties. The DNA data will
be made available to crop breeders helping them to
select key agricultural traits for breeding healthier,
higher yield crops.
The wheat genome information will be invaluable in
tackling the problem of global food shortage.
Researchers are now working to analyse the sequence
to highlight natural genetic variation between wheat
types, which will accelerate wheat breeding and speed
the development of new, commercially useful varieties
adapted to withstand pests and climate change.
Partner
The University of Bristol, the John Innes Centre and the Genome Analysis Centre
Activity type
Collaborative research
Academic lead(s)
Professor Neil Hall, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Institute of Integrative Biology,
Functional and Comparative Genomics; Dr Anthony Hall, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences,
Institute of Integrative Biology, Plant Sciences
Supported by
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
