Genome breakthrough heralds new dawn for agriculture
Posted by John Malloy on 08/29/2010
In a scientific tour-de-force that has been hailed as the most significant breakthrough in wheat production since the cereal crop was cultivated by the first farmers more than 10,000 years ago, scientists have decoded the genome of the wheat plant.
As a result, new breeds of disease-resistant crops could be producing higher wheat yields in as little as five years’ time, raising the prospect of lower bread prices and greater food security in a more populated world. And rather than guard their knowledge, the British scientists responsible for the research will today place a draft version of the genome online, making it available for free to wheat breeders around the world, who will be able to use it to speed up the creation of the new disease-resistant varieties that are urgently needed. Most wheat breeders currently rely on traditional methods of mixing new crop varieties – techniques that have not changed substantially for hundreds of years.
Wheat production is under pressure, particularly this summer because of the failure of the Russian harvest. Yet world food production will have to increase by an estimated 50 per cent over the next 40 years if the growing global population is to be fed.
One leading scientist behind the British study said yesterday that knowing the wheat genome would revolutionise the conventional breeding of wheat. Breeders, he explained, will be able to take valuable shortcuts that reduce the amount of time it takes to breed essential new plant varieties resistant to disease and drought. This would not entail genetic modification, although the genome will also prove invaluable for scientists if they did want to directly change the DNA of the wheat plant.
Conventional breeding can exploit the information contained in the wheat genome to screen seeds for the genetic “markers” or signposts that indicate the presence of valuable genes, such as those for resistance to drought or disease.
“A process that now takes five or six years will take one or two years. It is quite possible in five years’ time that a loaf of bread will be cheaper because of this,” said Professor Neil Hall, a genome scientist at Liverpool University, one of the three research centres that carried out the study.
via Genome breakthrough heralds new dawn for agriculture – Science, News – The Independent.
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