Back into the wild: harnessing the power of wheat wild relatives for future crop and food security.
Farooq M, Frei M, Zeibig F, Pantha S, Özkan H
Crop Improvement
The bread, pasta, and flour in your pantry all depend on wheat crops that are increasingly vulnerable to the droughts, heat waves, and new diseases driven by climate change — and the wild cousins of wheat growing in remote mountains and deserts may hold the genes that keep those crops from failing.
Modern wheat has been bred for high yields for so long that it has lost much of its natural toughness. Scientists are looking back at the wild relatives of wheat — ancient grasses and primitive wheats that still grow in the wild — which naturally resist pests, survive drought, and tolerate salty soils. New gene-reading and gene-editing technologies are making it faster and easier than ever to copy those survival traits into the wheat we grow for food.
Key Findings
Wheat wild relatives carry genes for resistance to pests and diseases, tolerance to drought and salinity, and improved nutritional quality that have been lost in modern cultivated varieties.
Advances in genomic sequencing and CRISPR-style gene editing have significantly accelerated the transfer of beneficial wild traits into commercial wheat breeding programs.
De novo domestication — essentially re-domesticating wild plants from scratch using modern genomic tools — is emerging as a new strategy to develop resilient, high-yielding crops for future food security.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Wild relatives of wheat — grasses and ancient wheat species that thrive in harsh conditions — hold genetic traits that modern farmed wheat has lost. Scientists are using genomic tools and gene editing to bring those traits back, potentially creating wheat varieties that can withstand drought, disease, and climate disruption.
Abstract Preview
Modern agriculture faces increasing challenges from climate change and a rapidly growing global population, necessitating innovative strategies to ensure food security. Wheat wild relatives (WWRs) ...
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Wheat is a group of wild and domesticated grasses of the genus Triticum. As cereals, they are cultivated for their grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known wheat species and hybrids include the most widely grown common wheat, spelt, durum, emmer, einkorn, and Khorasan or Kamut....