Content area
Full text
Genetic variability in wheat populations could help bring consistent yields whatever the season. Louise Impey and Mike Abram report
A DEFRA-funded project is aiming to produce wheat crops with a better in-built ability to cope with whatever the season throws at them.
The project being carried out by Elm Farm Research Centre started out as an idea to restrict disease development by planting three or four different varieties as a mixture, consultant research director Martin Wolfe says.
Today, the reality is rather different. Twenty-one varieties, selected for either their yield or quality potential, have been inter-crossed instead of being allowed to selfcross, producing a population containing about 200 Fl hybrids. "Because we've used lots of parents the population's genetic potential is very large - it is a genetic melting pot."
That, in contrast to fields of a single variety, gives the composite cross-populations much more genetic variability to deal with fluctuations in environmental conditions, Prof Wolfe says.
"For example, if you've got parents that grow well in the drier east, and parents that grow well in the wetter west, you will have some plants [within the composite crosses] that will produce well in the drier east and some which won't.
"But because you don't know what the season will be like, for example, it might be drier in the west in some years, the genetic variability means the population will always be able to survive and produce, whatever the conditions."
The concept is of most use for organic systems, he says. "In conventional production you're trying to control the environment by applying fertiliser and inputs. But the environment under organic systems is much more variable, so arguably you need more genetic variation to cope...