Miller Magazine Issue: 143 November 2021

52 MILLER / november 2021 NEWS A new review — authored by a team of 25 scientists from CIMMYT, Henan Agricultural University, the University of Adelaide and the Wheat Initiative — proposes ways to accelerate climate resilience of sta- ple crops, by integrating proven breeding methods with cutting-edge technologies. With the past decade identified as the warmest on record and global temperatures predicted to rise by as much as 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels by 2050, the world’s staple food crops are increasingly un- der threat. A new review published in the Journal of Experimental Botany describes how researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and col- laborators are boosting climate resilience in wheat using powerful remote sensing tools, genomics and big data analysis. Scientists are combining multiple approaches to explore untapped diversity among wheat genetic re- sources and help select better parents and progeny in breeding. The review — authored by a team of 25 scientists from CIMMYT, Henan Agricultural University, the University of Adelaide and the Wheat Initiative — also outlines how this research can be harnessed on a global level to fur- ther accelerate climate resilience in staple crops. “An ad- vantage of understanding abiotic stress at the level of plant physiology is that many of the same tools and meth- ods can be applied across a range of crops that face similar problems,” said first author and CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds. Abiotic stresses such as temperature extremes and drought can have devastating impacts on plant growth and yields, posing a massive risk to food security. Addressing research gaps The authors identified nine key research gaps in efforts to boost climate resilience in wheat, including limited ge- netic diversity for climate resilience, a need for smarter strategies for stacking traits and addressing the bottle- neck between basic plant research and its application Scientists bridge theory and practice to boost climate resilience in wheat