Wheat covers 60% of UK arable land and generates £2.5 billion at farm gate, but its yield gains are slowing compared to other grains like maize. This project sequences the wheat genome as part of an international effort to accelerate genetic and transgenic crop improvement. Without a complete, accurate genome sequence, breeders lack the fundamental tool needed to identify genes for higher yield, disease resistance, and tolerance to poor soil or drought. The research fills a critical gap: wheat’s genome is large and complex, and past yield increases came mainly from better agronomy, not genetics. If successful, the sequence will become a permanent reference for nearly all wheat biology, enabling breeders to develop varieties that produce more food on the same land with fewer inputs. That matters for global food security, because grass crops—wheat, rice, maize—are the primary source of human nutrition. The work also supports using non-food crop components, like cell wall material, for energy and industrial feedstocks, helping maximise renewable resources from limited land.
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Securing food supply on a global scale requires solutions to a complex set of unprecedented problems, including rising demand due to major population increases and social mobility, global climate change, rising energy costs and land, water and nutrient limitations. Finding and implementing these solutions is a top priority for governments and scientists worldwide, and has been articulated as a key BBSRC strategic objective. Opportunities for plant science to contribute to global food security include increasing the yield and quality of crops, combatting diseases, enabling maximal crop productivity in sub-optimal growth conditions, and increasing maximal yield potential. Utilising non- food components of food crops, such as cell wall material and waste products of food production to produce energy and industrial feedstocks, has a major role in reaching sustainability and maximising overall yield of renewable resources from limited land and soils. Grass crops are essential for human existence by directly or indirectly serving as the primary source of human nutrition. Wheat, rice and coarse grains such as maize are the most important crops for human food production, therefore increasing grain production sustainably is a critically important strategic and scientific objective. Wheat is the main arable crop in the UK, planted on 60% of arable land, with an annual farm gate value of ~£2.5b and a processed product value of approximately £150bn. Yield increases in wheat are slowing compared to past gains achieved primarily through improved agronomy and also in relation to other grain crops, notably maize. Genetic and transgenic improvement of wheat is therefore a very high priority in the UK and world- wide, and large international programmes for wheat genetic improvement are underway. A high quality genomics sequence provides a complete, accurate and durable record of genes, predicted proteins and other genomic elements that today are a fundamental foundation for nearly all areas of biological research. This proposal describes a UK component of an international coordinated wheat genome sequencing project that will make decisive and innovative contributions to sequencing the wheat genome and supporting crop improvement through genomics.
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