Researchers develop world’s first ‘speed breeding’ strategy to boost production of whole wheat by 3 times. Motivated by NASA‘s tests to grow whole wheat in space, Australian researchers are suffering from the world’s first ‘quickness breeding’ strategy that can enhance the creation of the crop by up to 3 x. The NASA tests included using the constant light on whole wheat which triggered early on duplication in the crops.
“We thought we’re able to use the NASA idea to increase plants quickly again on the planet, and subsequently, accelerate the hereditary gain inside our plant breeding programs,” said Lee Hickey, Senior Research Fellow at University or college of Queensland (UQ) in Australia.
“By using acceleration mating techniques in specially customized glasshouses we can expand six years of whole wheat, chickpea and barley crops, and four decades of canola plant life in one year – instead of several generations in a normal glasshouse, or an individual technology in the field,” Hickey said.
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“Our experiments revealed that the product quality and produce of the crops grown under manipulated climate and long daylight conditions was nearly as good, or sometimes better, than those cultivated in regular glasshouses,” he said. There’s been a lot appealing globally in this system because of the fact that the earth must produce 60-80 percent more food by 2050 to supply its nine billion people, research workers said.
The speed mating technique has mainly been used for research purposes but is currently being followed by industry. Together with Dow Agro Sciences, the experts have used the strategy to develop the new ‘DS Faraday’ whole wheat variety scheduled for release to industry this season. “DS Faraday is a higher protein, milling whole wheat with tolerance to pre-harvest sprouting,” Hickey said.
“We created genes for grain dormancy so that it can better deal with moist weather at harvest time – which includes been problems wheat experts in Australia have been hoping to resolve for 40 years,” Hickey said. “We’ve finally got a discovery in grain dormancy, and quickness mating really helped us to do it,” he said.
UQ PhD scholar Amy Watson, a co-first writer of the paper printed in the journal Character Plants, conducted a few of the key tests that noted the rapid seed growth and overall flexibility of the machine for multiple crop types. The brand new technology “may possibly also involve some great applications in future vertical farming systems, plus some horticultural vegetation,” Hickey added. Reuters
