Flinders University and researchers from Queensland’s Longreach Plant Breeders are joining forces with an international five-year $US2 million project to improve drought tolerance and heat resilience in wheat.
Chief investigator Professor Kathleen Soole, along with College of Science and Engineering molecular science and technology researchers Dr Crystal Sweetman and Associate Professor Colin Jenkins, will sample South Australian wheat crops and grain for the new project launched this month by Washington State University (WSU).
Funding to identify new genes in spring wheat that would allow it to be more resilient to heat and drought will be backed by a Seeding Solutions grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, WSU, the Washington Grain Commission, Flinders University, LongReach Plant Breeders and the OA Vogel Wheat Research Fund.
Flinders and Longreach researchers will work together to screen wheat varieties in multiple locations in South Australia, looking for stress-resilient cultivars and genetic markers in Australian field conditions, and comparing them with findings from the international field sites.
“This is a fantastic opportunity. We hope to identify drought and heat tolerance mechanisms that are important not only in Australia, but across a range of geographical locations,” says Dr Crystal Sweetman.
Increasing heat accompanied by low soil moisture content also makes plants produce highly toxic chemicals known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn lowers yield.
The new research is targeting the genetic markers which correlate with lower ROS production. If those markers are found, then breeding programs can exploit those to develop varieties with reduced damage from reactive oxygen species.
This project features test sites in Washington, Mexico and Australia. The next step will add locations in Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
“There’s no simple way to find out how plants cope with increased heat and drought conditions at the genetic level,” says lead investigator Associate Professor Andrei Smertenko, from WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry.
“Discovery of the resiliency genes is difficult because chemical reactions inside plants are hard to observe. We hope measuring wheat varieties adapted to different geographical locations will reveal genetic markers of lower oxidative damage.
“Our collaborators in the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center will help to share the markers and genetic lines with breeders around the world. Our project is part of a global network of researchers that want to help fight for food security by advancing breeding strategies.”