A FLUKE experiment tinkering with the genes of Australian wheat has created a new variety that could rocket wheat yields by 30 per cent a year.
The chance discovery by a CSIRO research team is considered so significant that it has been heralded worldwide as a possible solution to future global food shortages.
Grains Research & Development Corporation chief John Harvey described the surprise breeding breakthrough as one of the most exciting scientific advances for wheat in decades.
“It was a lucky, serendipitous discovery,” a delighted Mr Harvey told a national grain industry conference in Melbourne. “Researchers at CSIRO’s division of Plant Industry were looking at ways to change starch in wheat (for industrial processing reasons) and noticed when they grew (these new wheat types) the plants ended up 30 per cent larger, with 30 per cent bigger heads and a 30 per cent increase in grain yield.”
The new “super-wheat”, bred by a research team in Canberra headed by Matthew Morell, is being grown in field trials in three locations around Australia.
It is hoped it will provide the momentous leap in wheat productivity that researchers have spent years searching for, after worryingly slow advances in recent times.
Jeremy Burdon, CSIRO Plant Industry chief, said yesterday that after the “green revolution” of the 1960s and 70s, when new varieties resistant to common diseases and pests brought giant wheat yield gains, there had been only incremental productivity boosts in recent years.
“The new plant breeding challenge now is, unlike in the past where it was about developing disease resistance, about increasing wheat biomass and grain head yields,” Dr Burdon said.
“That’s why this new development is potentially so significant; a 30 per cent yield increase is an extraordinary achievement if it can be replicated in the field.”
With 650 million tonnes of wheat grown annually around the world — Australia grew a record 29.5 million tonnes last year — wheat is one of the most important food crops needed to feed the growing global population of nine billion by 2050.
World wheat prices hit a record high last week following major droughts in the US, Canada and Russia, and world grain prices are expected to continue to rise over the next five to 10 years.
“With this technology, we see more vigorous wheat with larger seed heads, and larger seed,” said Bruce Lee, director of CSIRO’s Food Futures Flagship.
“If we can achieve significant yield increases in the field, this will have a major impact on food production on a global scale.”
CSIRO and grower-funded GRDC jointly own the new wheat “GWD variety”, bred using gene manipulation and slicing techniques that turned off a naturally occurring enzyme gene in wheat’s genetic makeup.
Dr Morell and his CSIRO Plant Industry team were originally looking to breed a new wheat line with a lower starch content and viscosity, to make industrial wheat flour processing easier. While the CSIRO team has achieved that aim, the discovery of the super-high-yielding new wheat has bowled over the international plant breeding world.
Multinational chemical and seed company Bayer last week signed a joint venture agreement with CSIRO and the GRDC to take the new high-yielding super GM wheat variety through to international commercialisation.
“This is a complex scientific challenge and a long road for development, which we believe will benefit from partnerships with some of the best innovators in the world to help wheat farmers access these significant gains sooner,” Bayer Crop Science business head Mathias Kremer said.
Mr Harvey said while Bayer would help further development and refinement of the GM high-yielding trait “outside Australia”, all the initial field trials would be located within in Australia.
Source:
http://junkscience.com/2012/08/05/super-yielding-wheat-may-solve-food-crisis/