Harnessing translational research for climate resilience of wheat

 Matthew Reynolds

** CIMMYT, Km 45, Carretera Mexico-Veracruz, El Batan, Texcoco 56237, EdoMex, Mexico.

m.reynolds@cgiar.org

Abstract

Despite being the world’s most widely grown crop, investments in wheat research fall behind those in other staple crops. The current annual rate of yield gains for wheat is only about 40% of that needed to meet 2050 consumer demand, and climate stresses will increasingly challenge future yield gains. However, there is promising evidence that the research gaps needed to boost heat and drought tolerance of wheat can be filled through the translation of new ideas into novel breeding technologies using powerful new tools in genetics, and remote sensing for example. Such technologies can also be applied to identify new climate resilience traits from among the vast and largely untapped reserve of wheat genetic resources available in collections around the world. A number of research opportunities exist which together are expected to boost genetic gains in wheat under drought and heat stress. Specifically, improving crop design targets using big data approaches, development of phenomics tools for field-based screening and research, application of genomic technologies to elucidate genetic bases of climate resilience traits, and the application of these outputs in developing next-generation breeding methods. The global impact of these outputs will be scaled out through the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN), a global germplasm development and testing system that contributes key productivity traits as well as new cultivars to well over half of the global wheat growing area.

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Keywords: pre-breeding, physiology, genetic resources, big data, gene discovery