AGRICULTURE Victoria scientists have traced the genetic origins of bread wheat back to 8000 BC in research that could help safeguard this key global food crop against climate change.

The world-first research used genome-wide data to track historical gene flow from wild emmer, a founding wheat ancestor.

The resulting 10,000-year-old genome-level family tree provides the foundation for faster and more accurate development of wheat varieties suited to a changing climate.

Agriculture Victoria scientist Dr Matthew Hayden said the development of more resilient wheat varieties would be vital to offset projected production declines due to increasingly hot and dry conditions predicted for eastern Australia.

“This research enables wheat breeders to accelerate precision breeding of wheat varieties that are better adapted to a changed climate, which is critical to the future success of the grains industry,” Dr Hayden said.

“We can now pinpoint, with an extremely high level of confidence, areas of the wheat genome that affect climate-related traits such as heat-tolerance, water-use and fertiliser use.

“Researchers and breeders can use this information to develop new bread wheat varieties with more adaptive genes and improved heat stress tolerance, water use efficiency and nutrient use efficiency.”

This research has only become possible since Agriculture Victoria scientists, as part of a massive international effort, cracked the wheat genome sequence last year.

Agriculture Victoria scientists have now overlayed the wheat genome sequence with genetic data from almost 900 wheat varieties, representing worldwide wheat diversity, to generate a comprehensive 3.5 million-point genetic roadmap that shows the history of wheat domestication, adaptative evolution and crop improvement.

“Agriculture Victoria was in a strong position to lead this research due to its world-leading scientists and cutting-edge technologies,” Dr Hayden said.

Source: Agriculture Victoria

The paper, Exome sequencing reveals the role of historic wild relative introgression in shaping the adaptive landscape of the wheat genome, is now published in Nature Genetics.