âWheat provides 20 percent of daily calories around the world today. Itâs a crucial source of protein and carbohydrate for billions of people,â says Professor Richard Trethowan, Director of the University of Sydneyâs Plant Breeding Institute.Â
âBut one of the biggest problems globally is that the yield of wheat is plateauing.â
For Australia â one of the worldâs major wheat exporters â keeping wheat healthy is vital for farmers and regional communities, as well as being key to food security â both in Australia and globally.
âWe haven't seen significant increases in yield all around the world for the past 10 to 15 years, and we are looking for new technologies that might be able to break what we call the yield barrier,â Richard says. âHybrid wheat is one of those potential technologies."
Professor Richard Trethowan examines wheat crop with Associate Professor Peng Zhang. Credit: Stefanie Zingsheim.
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Scientists at the University of Sydney have been breeding or improving food crops â such as wheat, oats and barley â for more than 100 years. Much of their early work focused on rust resistance, tackling a major disease affecting wheat and barley.
âToday we have what we call a biologically perfect system for making wheat hybrids â it has taken us 30 years of research,â Richard says. âItâs a breakthrough for genetic technology, and weâve used natural diversity to create this system, so weâre pretty excited about it.
Isobella Revell, a PhD student and research assistant working with the team says hybrids are everywhere in the natural world â whether in plants or animals â and theyâre powerful.
âWhat makes them quite interesting is they sometimes create this phenomenon we call heterosis. Heterosis is basically where the hybrid offspring outperforms its parents. For crops, it could be more water efficient and drought resistance than its parents.â
The challenge is that wheat doesnât hybridise easily. As a self-fertilising crop, it limits its own potential to be adapted to different environments. Thatâs why the Universityâs unique system â which prevents wheat from self-pollinating and allows researchers to cross specific varieties â is so significant. It opens the door to adapting wheat with traits like improved heat tolerance and drought resilience.
Wheat farmer Damien Scanlan on his farm on NSW-Qld border. Credit: Paulina Eaborn.
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LinkWheat farmer, Damien Scanlan, who farms near Goondiwindi on the NSWâQueensland border, knows just how much varying conditions can impact his crops.
He travels regularly to the University of Sydneyâs state-of-the-art facility in Narrabri, in northwestern NSW to talk wheat with Richard and his team at the International Centre of Crop and Digital Agriculture.
âDroughts in Australia are reasonably common,â Damien says. âAnd one of the things about a hybrid wheat program is that it might be able to give some more resilience to farmers â and that passes down through the chain to consumers and families and people in major cities. It helps reduce their costs of their inputs. If a farmer's doing it tough, the whole of the country's doing it tough.â
Stronger, more stable crops mean lower costs, fewer losses and more reliable harvests for growers.
Itâs a breakthrough for genetic technology, and weâve used natural diversity to create this system, so weâre pretty excited about it.â
Director, Plant Breeding Institute
Wheat is also a staple in the diets of billions of people worldwide, with  Richard and his team are working to make this unique technology freely available to farmers in countries like Pakistan, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
âIf we can produce high-yielding wheats that are disease resistant and adapted to climate change, which have better drought and heat tolerance, and are more nutritious for you, then we could have a significant impact on global food security,â Richard says. âAnd weâre right now at the point of commercialising our system globally â to produce it on a really large scale.â
Backed by a century of crop research, new genetic insights and close collaboration with farmers on the ground, hybrid wheat is a major leap forward â set to shape the way we grow one of the worldâs most essential foods.Â