Dr Cristobal Uauy - Taking the genetic brakes off wheat production

Duration: 54 mins 25 secs

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Description:	Dr Cristobal Uauy of the John Innes Centre speaks about his work using the latest understanding of wheat genetics to increase the yield of wheat for the world's poorest farmers.

Created:

2016-12-01 13:11

Collection:

The Gatsby Plant Science Summer School Lecture Collection

Publisher:

University of Cambridge

Language:

eng (English)

Credits:

Person:	Dr Cristobal Uauy
Director:	Harriet Truscott
Editor:	Leeds Media Services


Abstract:	Wheat is grown across continents and adapts to a wide range of environments. It is part of our culture and we depend on it every day. Today each one of us will eat on average 50 wheat plants, providing us with 20% of the calories and 25% of the protein we consume. During the Green Revolution of the 1950s-1960s, global wheat yields rose by over 3% per annum, keeping pace with global demand. However, the rate of advance has declined below 1% per annum since 1990. This has led to global food insecurity as current trends are insufficient to meet future demands for wheat. Urgent action is therefore required to produce enough nutritious food for a growing population in a sustainable manner. We need to do better, and we need to do this now. Recent advances in genomics provide a new opportunity to use science-based solutions to address this problem. Wheat is complex due to its large genome and it polyploid nature: it has three almost identical copies of every gene! I’ll describe how we are using this to our advantage in an attempt to uncover the hidden potential of wheat which has not previously been exploited in modern breeding.

Abstract:

Wheat is grown across continents and adapts to a wide range of environments. It is part of our culture
and we depend on it every day. Today each one of us will eat on average 50 wheat plants, providing
us with 20% of the calories and 25% of the protein we consume. During the Green Revolution of the
1950s-1960s, global wheat yields rose by over 3% per annum, keeping pace with global demand.
However, the rate of advance has declined below 1% per annum since 1990. This has led to global
food insecurity as current trends are insufficient to meet future demands for wheat. Urgent action
is therefore required to produce enough nutritious food for a growing population in a sustainable
manner. We need to do better, and we need to do this now.

Recent advances in genomics provide a new opportunity to use science-based solutions to address
this problem. Wheat is complex due to its large genome and it polyploid nature: it has three almost
identical copies of every gene! I’ll describe how we are using this to our advantage in an attempt to
uncover the hidden potential of wheat which has not previously been exploited in modern breeding.

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