Wild wheat, plant genomics, and food security
Posted 24th February 2020 by Liv Sewell
Wheat is the most widely grown crop in the world, providing 20% of the calories and proteins consumed by humankind. More than one fifth of the projected yield is lost every year to disease. Dr Brande Wulff, Group Leader at the John Innes Centre, and speaker at the 8th Plant Genomics and Gene Editing Congress, Europe, is leading research aiming to reduce the proportion of wheat lost to pathogens and increase global food security…
Integrating new breeding technologies: a game changer for developing future crops
Posted 27th January 2020 by Liv Sewell
With an ever-increasing human population, predicted to be 10 billion people by 2050, studies estimate that we need to double the rate of genetic gain in our crop improvement programs globally to meet this demand. Dr Lee Hickey is a plant breeder and crop geneticist. He and his team are seeking to develop plant breeding tools that could help to enable this genetic gain.
Integrating breeding technologies to supercharge future crops
Posted 15th February 2019 by Joshua Sewell
The inspiration for the development of ‘Speed Breeding’ came from the first food product designed and purposefully bred for growing in space, a variety of wheat called USU-Apogee. Because there is not much space inside the spacecraft, they needed to maximise the number of wheat plants and grow them very quickly.
