A 'breeder's tool kit' to improve Hagberg Falling Number for the economic and environmental sustainability of UK wheat

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A harvested wheat crop is normally assessed for several quality attributes that influence the ability of its flour to make bread and also affect the money paid to farmers by millers. One such parameter is called Hagberg Falling Number (HFN) which is an indirect measure of the properties that a loaf of bread will have. For example, wheat with low HFN will produce bread that is very difficult to slice because of sticky crumb. Therefore, millers and other end-users avoid buying wheat grain that has a HFN value below a fixed number. Low HFN wheat impacts negatively on the environment as it produces wastage and inefficient use of resources. Unlike other problems in wheat which can be corrected by agronomic practices or through disease management, HFN is heavily influenced by the environment and cannot be easily improved by these means. This is especially relevant in the UK environment as cold and wet periods during the summer are thought to reduce HFN. Therefore, the most effective and reliable way for a farmer to grow high HFN wheat is proper varietal selection. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for breeders to develop high HFN varieties due to lack of knowledge of the genes, or regions throughout the genome, which might influence HFN. Through a previously funded Defra-BBSRC project we have made important progress in understanding the variation for HFN in UK wheat varieties and have taken a first step to discovering the regions of the genome that affect this trait. Despite these encouraging results, we are still short in developing the tools that breeders require to transfer this knowledge into improved commercial wheat varieties. This projects seeks to address this limitation by developing a 'breeder's tool kit' that will assist towards this end. We have selected six regions of the wheat genome which we know are affecting HFN based on experiments conducted in the previous project. We will now hone in and develop more precise information of these regions. This will result in better defined genetic maps which breeders can use to navigate the wheat genome and focus their breeding efforts more effectively in those locations that contain genes affecting HFN. We will investigate how these regions affect agronomic traits which are of interests to breeders and farmers; such as yield and other quality characteristics. We will also combine the six regions in different combinations to better understand how they work together and if we can produce more resilient varieties that will have high HFN values independent of the weather conditions. We will also investigate the basic biology of how these regions affect HFN. Together, this information will enable UK plant breeders to develop new, more competitive varieties of wheat with reduced environmental footprint and more consistent grain quality.