Victorian wheat growers see great potential in wheat genome breakthrough

Agriculture Victoria scientists helped develop the world’s first road map of the wheat genome, paving the way for faster precision breeding of improved varieties of the cereal.

Birchip’s Ian McClelland said the discovery would allow researchers to measure changes earlier.

“Instead of growing wheat out in the field and seeing the difference, they can measure those differences a lot earlier and be able to make significant changes faster than they have in the past,” Mr McClelland said.

“We hope they can continue to improve wheat varieties.”

He said many researchers had been trying to breed resistant wheat.

“It’s a challenging prospect, breeding drought and frost resistance and we are now in a better position than we were 13 years ago.

“It’s a real breakthrough, as they can now pick groups of genes that correspond to certain attributes.”

He said it would be a long-term project, but would eventually help future wheat breeding programs.

While a common food ingredient, wheat’s genetic makeup is so complex that the wheat genome is equivalent to a 16-billion-piece puzzle. 

The publication is a culmination of 13 years of research by Agriculture Victoria honorary research fellow, Professor Rudi Appels, along with a team of scientists and the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium. 

Mr McClelland said the discovery highlighted the importance of science, in agriculture.

“Continual improvement really does depend on scientific breakthroughs - we really need to keep investing and encouraging them,” he said.

Berriwillock’s John Renney said the breakthrough would help all farmers. 

“It takes so long in the normal process of breeding that if anything can speed it up, it’s got to be for the better,” Mr Renney said.

“When you breed something for a partial trait, other traits that you don’t necessarily want, come with it.

‘Hopefully, this will help isolate the traits we are interested in breeding.”

He said one area, in which it could be applied, was in development of a frost tolerant gene.

‘The one we are interested in is drought tolerance,” Mr Renney said.

“But, saying that, it might be a bit more tricky to deal with.

Farmers would also be interested in disease resistance.

Boort grain grower Cam Parker said it was exciting to see the great work of scientists and researchers developing into practical outcomes.

“They are as vital to the future of agriculture as finding the next generation of on farm workers and advisers,” Mr Parker said.

“Unlocking the “road map” to frost tolerance, and ideally in time drought tolerance, will develop cultivars of wheat that will support Australian grain production to be sustainable into the future.”

Noel Barr, Tatyoon, said last year he lost about 80 per cent of his potential yield after late frosts hit his crops.

He said he hoped it would result in a dramatic shortening of the time, taken to develop new varieties.

“I think it’s got the potential, in years to come, to improve the ability to release new varieties more quickly and target specific things, like drought, and frost tolerance.”

Woomelang grower Chris Kelly said it was a wonderful discovery.

But it was now up to the Grains and Research Development Corporation to invest in new technologies, such as CRISPR, to capitalise on the genome sequencing.

CRISPR allows scientists to edit genomes, so researchers can easily alter DNA sequences.

The discovery should be the catalyst for the GRDC to spend money on CRISPR.

“They haven’t started investing in it, because they don’t know who owns it,” Mr Kelly said.

“By vacillating, they are jeopardising the future of cropping, in Australia.”

Mr Kelly said the only way to handle disruption to the sector, such as through drought, was in finding new technologies.

 ‘I think it could be the key to our survival, but its a race,” he said.

“If we don’t, we will be left behind because the competition coming from the Black Sea is enormous.”

Mr Kelly said he believed CRISPR technology could be the perfect solution to deal with mutations, like rust.

“We have got the world at our feet, but the GRDC has to get off its backside and invest.”

GRDC Genetic and Enabling Technologies general manager Dr Nicole Jensen said the organisation was proud to be a co-investor in the international collaborative project. 

“By having an increased understanding of the genetic complexity of wheat, Australian researchers can now extract information and develop improved varieties to be grown by Australian growers,” Dr Jensen said.

She said GRDC could build on the investment to accelerate advances in disease resistance and adaptation to challenging Australian production environments.

“What this means is Australian grain growers will have better wheat varieties that are higher yielding, are more disease resistant and adapted to our climatic conditions,” she said.

But there were issues in relation to the use of gene editing technology, generally, and CRISPR specifically.

“There is a legal dispute in relation to the legal ownership, licencing and commercialisation of this technology and the regulatory environment to ensure a path to market for this technology is not clear after an EU decision, in early August,” Dr Jensen said.

“GRDC is supportive of gene editing technology and is being prudent in ensuring research outcomes from the application of the technology can be delivered to Australian grain growers.

GRDC worked with research partners who were using CRISPR and had current research investments that used gene editing technology.