Developing Climate Resilient Wheat: Manipulating Major Genes and Exploiting Novel Diversity

The NIAB wheat pre-breeding program exists as a “proof-of-concept” for translating plant science research into pre-commercial breeding material for UK wheat improvement. As part of this program we are investigating key genes controlling flowering time, a trait underpinning adaptation to the environment. In breeding, flowering time can be manipulated via major gene combinations to tailor wheat varieties to target environments. Flowering time work at NIAB encompasses the development of precise genetic stocks (e.g. Bentley et al., 2013 JXB 64:1783-1793) to understand broad environmental response as well as to reveal developmental responses and tradeoffs associated with temperature and drought stress. Next generation mapping resources, including the NIAB Elite Multi-parent Advanced Generation InterCross (MAGIC) population (Mackay et al., 2014 G3 4:1603-1610) also elucidate genetic loci involved in fine-tuning environmental adaptation.   

In addition to the action of major genes for environmental adaptation, we are exploiting genetic diversity from wheat’s wild relatives. As part of the UK public-sector wheat pre-breeding programme WISP (http://www.wheatisp.org), we are mining ex situ collections of wheat’s D-genome donor, Aegilops tauschii. New diversity from 50 independent Ae. tauschii accessions from a wide genetic and ecogeographical range has been captured via targeted re-synthesis of the hexaploid (AABBDD) wheat genome. This diversity is exploitable through a structured pre-breeding pipeline which aims to produce 10,000 derived lines in elite backgrounds. High density genotyping is used in concert with targeted phenotypic assessment and a number of genotyping resources (e.g. Winfield et al. 2015 PBJ in press) have been, and continue to be, developed in support of this. A new component of the programme is the incorporation of favourable abiotic stress traits from a small collection of Hourani tetraploid wheat landraces from Syria.