<
https://www.science.org/content/article/gold-mine-century-old-wheat-varieties-could-help-breeders-restore-long-lost-traits>
"An antique collection of wheat from around the world could breathe new vigor
into the staple. When plant breeders created modern wheat during the 19th and
20th centuries, they focused on crossing and selectively breeding a few key
varieties, creating a finicky racehorse of a crop: high yielding but vulnerable
to disease, heat, and drought and reliant on a liberal application of
fertilizer. Part of the solution, according to a study published today by
Nature, may lie in the genetic diversity in 827 kinds of wheat, many of them
long vanished from farms.
The research is the culmination of a massive, decadelong effort to characterize
those crop populations, or landraces—sequencing their genomes, planting them in
fields, and scrutinizing their traits. “It is a herculean work,” says
geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky of the University of California, Davis, who wasn’t
involved in the study. “This will be a fantastic new resource for the global
wheat research community.” Already scientists have identified genes that, if
bred into modern wheat, could reduce the crop’s need for nitrogen fertilizer
and increase its resistance to wheat blast, a disease now threatening harvests
in much of the world.
The landrace collection was assembled in England starting in 1924, when Arthur
Ernest Watkins joined the University of Cambridge’s Plant Breeding Institute.
Watkins was studying wheat anatomy, examining variation in traits such as the
leaflike structures at the top of the stalk. He realized these traits might
help with differentiating landraces. So, he convinced the London Board of Trade
to collect wheat samples on his behalf. Over 2 decades, consuls and business
agents across the British Empire and beyond visited local markets and bought
grain that had been grown in as many environments as possible, acquiring 7000
samples of wheat from 32 countries.
Ever since, curators kept the collection viable by sowing and collecting seeds
every few years—a practice interrupted only by World War II, when some
landraces were lost. Meanwhile, in the wider world, farmers stopped growing
many of these landraces as new, high-yielding wheat arrived. Others lost their
uniqueness as curious farmers inter-bred them with the modern varieties. This
erosion of genetic diversity makes the Watkins collection—now maintained by the
John Innes Centre (JIC), a plant science institute in Norwich, England—a
valuable “snapshot of time,” says Alison Bentley, a wheat geneticist at
Australian National University."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-sleeping-sickness-chad-forests-ukraine-amur-leopards-in-siberia/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
