Norfolk scientists have raised hopes of more climate-proof food crops after growing high-yielding wheat with "exotic DNA" in the heat of a Mexican desert.
Researchers from the Earlham Institute on Norwich Research Park have been working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) to boost crop resilience in the face of climate change.
Following a year when UK temperature records have been smashed, the team has shown that wheat containing heat-tolerance genes from wild relatives of the plant brought up to 50% higher yields in hot weather compared with elite crop varieties lacking these genes.
The two-year field trial in Mexico’s Sonoran desert is being hailed as a breakthrough in the search for important food crops which are less vulnerable to extreme weather in a warming climate.
Study author Prof Anthony Hall, a group leader at the Earlham Institute, said: "Wheat is responsible for around 20% of the calories consumed globally and is widely grown all over the world.
"But we don’t know whether the crops we’re planting today will be able to cope with tomorrow's weather.
"To make matters worse, developing new varieties can take a decade or more so acting quickly is vital.
The discoveries we’re making, and the action we’re taking, will hopefully mean people around the world can continue to have nutritious food on their plates."
Researchers studied 149 wheat lines, ranging from widely-used commercial varieties to those selectively bred to include DNA from wild relatives found in Mexico and India.
They used DNA sequencing to locate specific plant genes responsible for the increased heat tolerance, and identified genetic "markers" to allow the targeted introduction of this beneficial exotic DNA into elite wheat lines.
The seeds were sown later in the season to force the plants to grow during hotter months, replicating the added heat stress which is predicted to become the norm as global temperatures rise.
The researchers hope the heat tolerance traits can be incorporated into commercial crop-breeding strategies in the future.
Benedict Coombes, a study author and PhD student at the Earlham Institute, said: "As we try to produce more food from less land to feed a growing global population, we urgently need to future-proof the crops we’re planting so they can thrive in an increasingly hostile climate.
"The key to this, we are increasingly finding, may lie within largely untapped genetic resources from wheat’s wild relatives and landraces."
The study has been published in the scientific journal Communications Biology.
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