Miller Magazine Issue: 152 August 2022

54 MILLER / AUGUST 2022 NEWS A first-of-its-kind analysis of the untapped genetic potential of wheat shows global yields are only half of what they could be. The team of international experts, led from the UK’s Rothamsted Research, says this ‘genetic yield gap’ could be closed by developing wheat varieties tailored to each region - by utilizing the vast genet- ic variation available in global and historical wheat gene banks with modern techniques such as speed breeding and gene editing. Dr. Mikhail Semenov and Dr. Nimai Senapati, who co-led this study, define a crop’s ‘genetic yield po- tential’ as the highest yield achievable by an ideal- ised variety – in other words, a plant with an optimal genome that allows it to capture water, sunlight and nutrients more efficiently than any other. Dr. Semen- ov said: “Current wheat cultivars are, on average, only at the half-way point with respect to the yields they could produce given the mismatches between their genetics and local wheat growing conditions. “Global wheat production could be doubled by the genetic improvement of local wheat cultivars - with- out increasing global wheat area.” Using existing data on the contribution of different genes to individual plant traits such as size, shape, metabolism and growth, the researchers ran millions of computer simulations to design ‘perfect’ wheat plants that were tailored to their local environments. When compared to the performance of locally adapted cultivars, in all cases they found current wheat varieties were underperforming for grain yield, with an obvious ‘genetic yield gap’ between reality and possibility. According to Dr. Senapati, closing the genetic yield gap would go a long way to feeding the growing world population and would re- duce pressure to convert wild habitats to farmland. Wheat is the world’s most widely grown crop, and in terms of human consumption, is the second most important crop after rice, with global harvests in the region of 750 million tons. Since the 1960s ‘Green Revolution’ yield have, on average, tripled – but this study suggests there is a lot more to come. It is the first time this type of analysis has been done globally with the study, looking at a total of 53 wheat growing regions across 33 countries and covering all global wheat growing environments. Using a state-of-the-art wheat model, called Sirius, Global wheat production can be doubled