One of the world’s most cultivated and oldest crops, wheat is a genetically freakish plant with 10 times the amount of fertility genes compared to other cereal crops.
While putting the building blocks for wheat down on paper during the landmark study, scientists found wheat’s fertility genes were far more diverse than ever expected.
The discovery opens up hope for it being easier than previously thought to grow wheat varieties less likely to self-pollinate themselves.
Wheat’s love for self-pollination has been a major roadblock in the road towards growing more prolific and tough wheat varieties, known as hybrids.
University of Western Australia scientists Ian Small and Joana Melonek contributed to the international study led by the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, specifically working on the genes controlling pollen fertility.
Professor Small said the team wasn’t expecting to find what they did across the gene family known as the Restorer-of-fertility-like (Rfl) genes.
“It was a stunning amount of variation,” he said.
“Even among closely related wheat types.”
The 16 varieties sequences came from wheat programs across the world.
Dr Melonek said the analysis was an important step in accelerating the many hybrid-breeding programs across the globe trying to improve wheat production.
“Wheat is a staple food and any improvements we can make to increase its productivity and quality will be important as the world population quickly grows and food security becomes an increasing issue,” she said.
Mapping out the wheat genome has been a long and hard task for scientists, but necessary, as it’s estimated global demand for wheat will increase 50 per cent by 2050.
University of Saskatchewan lead researcher Curtis Pozniak said the successful sequencing would enable more precise and controlled crossing of newer and better hybrid wheat.
The study, Multiple Wheat Genomes Reveal Global Variation In Modern Breeding (working title), is being published in the journal Nature.
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