Wheat Genomics for Sustainable Agriculture

确保全球范围内的粮食供应需要解决一系列前所未有的复杂问题，包括人口大幅增长和社会流动性导致的需求上升、全球气候变化、能源成本上升以及土地、水和营养的限制。寻找和实施这些解决方案是世界各国政府和科学家的首要任务，也是BBSRC的一项关键战略目标。植物科学为全球粮食安全做出贡献的机会包括提高作物的产量和质量，防治疾病，在次优生长条件下实现最大作物生产力，以及增加最大产量潜力。利用粮食作物的非粮食成分，如细胞壁材料和粮食生产的废物来生产能源和工业原料，在实现可持续性和从有限的土地和土壤中最大限度地提高可再生资源的总体产量方面发挥着重要作用。禾草作物直接或间接地作为人类营养的主要来源，是人类生存所必需的。小麦、水稻和玉米等粗粮是人类粮食生产最重要的作物，因此可持续地提高粮食产量是一项至关重要的战略和科学目标。小麦是英国主要的可耕地作物，种植在60%的可耕地上，每年的农场产值约为25亿英镑，加工产品价值约为1500亿英镑。与过去主要通过改良农艺实现的增产相比，以及与其他谷物作物（尤其是玉米）相比，小麦的增产速度正在放缓。因此，小麦的遗传和转基因改良在英国和世界范围内都是非常重要的，大型的国际小麦遗传改良项目正在进行中。一个高质量的基因组序列提供了一个完整、准确和持久的基因记录，预测蛋白质和其他基因组元素，今天是几乎所有生物研究领域的基础。该提案描述了国际协调小麦基因组测序项目的英国组成部分，该项目将为小麦基因组测序和通过基因组学支持作物改良做出决定性和创新性的贡献。

Securing food supply on a global scale requires solutions to a complex set of unprecedented problems, including rising demand due to major population increases and social mobility, global climate change, rising energy costs and land, water and nutrient limitations. Finding and implementing these solutions is a top priority for governments and scientists worldwide, and has been articulated as a key BBSRC strategic objective. Opportunities for plant science to contribute to global food security include increasing the yield and quality of crops, combatting diseases, enabling maximal crop productivity in sub-optimal growth conditions, and increasing maximal yield potential. Utilising non- food components of food crops, such as cell wall material and waste products of food production to produce energy and industrial feedstocks, has a major role in reaching sustainability and maximising overall yield of renewable resources from limited land and soils. Grass crops are essential for human existence by directly or indirectly serving as the primary source of human nutrition. Wheat, rice and coarse grains such as maize are the most important crops for human food production, therefore increasing grain production sustainably is a critically important strategic and scientific objective. Wheat is the main arable crop in the UK, planted on 60% of arable land, with an annual farm gate value of ~£2.5b and a processed product value of approximately £150bn. Yield increases in wheat are slowing compared to past gains achieved primarily through improved agronomy and also in relation to other grain crops, notably maize. Genetic and transgenic improvement of wheat is therefore a very high priority in the UK and world- wide, and large international programmes for wheat genetic improvement are underway. A high quality genomics sequence provides a complete, accurate and durable record of genes, predicted proteins and other genomic elements that today are a fundamental foundation for nearly all areas of biological research. This proposal describes a UK component of an international coordinated wheat genome sequencing project that will make decisive and innovative contributions to sequencing the wheat genome and supporting crop improvement through genomics.