BREAKTHRU: developing soil compaction resistant wheat

迫切需要大幅提高作物产量，以满足到2050年世界人口的增长。作物有效吸收水分和养分的能力依赖于其根系充分利用可用土壤。然而，土壤可能会变得太硬，根系无法穿透。这被称为土壤压实，是现代农业面临的一个重大挑战，因为农田管理方式发生了变化，现代农业设备的重量也在增加。如果作物根系由于压实而无法穿透土壤，这将导致产量减少25%，当与干旱胁迫结合时，产量减少高达75%。欧洲一半以上的耕地容易压实，造成数十亿英镑的损失。尽管它的重要性，很少有人知道为什么根实际上停止在坚硬的土壤中生长。我们团队（Pandey et al，2021，Science）最近进行的一系列（字面上）突破性实验表明，根系在破坏了对植物激素信号（称为乙烯）的敏感性后，能够穿透高度压实的土壤。BREAKTHRU项目建议利用这一新知识，通过改变小麦对乙烯信号的根部反应，重新设计小麦，使其能够抵抗坚硬的土壤。我们将确定新的小麦品种，其根部对乙烯不太敏感。先进的成像和人工智能方法将用于测试我们选择的新小麦品种是否能够更好地在压实的土壤中生长，并更容易地捕获养分和水分。最后，我们将在现实的田间条件下种植最有前途的小麦品系，包括当土壤被农业机械压实时。从这项研究中获得的知识将提供有关控制根系对土壤压实反应的关键基因的重要新信息，帮助育种者设计新的方法来克服土壤压实，提高作物的资源捕获和产量，支持改善英国粮食安全的努力。

Significant improvements in crop yields are urgently required to meet the increase in world population by 2050. The ability of a crop to efficiently absorb water and nutrients relies on its root system to fully explore the available soil. However, soil can become too hard for roots to penetrate. This is referred to as soil compaction and represents a major challenge facing modern agriculture due to changes in how fields are managed and increasing weight of modern farming equipment. If crop roots are unable to penetrate soil due to compaction, this results in reduced yields of 25%, and up to 75% when combined with drought stress. Over half of Europe's farmed soil are prone to compaction, costing billions of pounds of losses. Despite its importance, little was known about why roots actually stop growing in hard soils. A series of (literally) ground-breaking experiments by our team (Pandey et al, 2021, Science) recently revealed that roots are able to penetrate highly compacted soil after disrupting their sensitivity to a plant hormone signal called ethylene. The BREAKTHRU project proposes to exploit this new knowledge and re-engineer wheat to become resistant to hard soils by modifying their root responses to the signal ethylene. We will identify new wheat varieties whose roots are less sensitive to ethylene. Advanced imaging and artificial intelligence approaches will then be used to test whether the new wheat varieties we have selected are better able to grow in compacted soil and capture nutrients and water more readily. Finally, we will grow the most promising wheat lines in realistic field conditions including when soil has been compacted by farm machinery. The knowledge gained from this study will provide vital new information about the key genes controlling root responses to soil compaction, helping breeders to design novel approaches to overcome soil compaction and enhance resource capture and yield in crops supporting efforts to improve food security in the UK.