Improving water-use efficiency in wheat by modulating leaf structure

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Wheat provides 29% of calories consumed worldwide and is a major UK crop. Reflecting increased pressure on a finite resource, improving water. Reflecting increased pressure on a finite resource, improving water-use efficiency is a major objective in wheat breeding (1). As a result of a previous CASE studentship, we have evidence that during breeding/evolution there has been a selection for leaf cells which have increased size and altered shape, and that this is linked to improved water-use efficiency (WUE) in modern wheat (2). The aim of this project is to test this hypothesis and to provide the CASE partner with novel traits as targets for breeding wheat with improved WUE.