Exploiting variation in wheat land races to optimise dietary fibre content and viscosity in commercial wheats

膳食纤维(DF)是饮食中的一种基本成分，具有公认的健康益处。可溶性DF还可能具有与其高粘度相关的独特好处。然而，英国成年人的每日摄入量大大低于推荐的指南。在英国，小麦是最重要的膳食纤维来源，面包提供了每日摄入量的20%。因此，改善小麦膳食纤维是一个重要的目标。相比之下，当小麦被用作家禽饲料以及蒸馏和生物燃料工厂生产酒精的原材料时，高纤维和高粘度是有害的。我们已经确定了20世纪30年代在世界各地收集的沃特金斯小麦中总纤维和可溶性纤维的数量存在着广泛的差异。将与一家主要的小麦育种者和苏格兰威士忌研究所合作，更详细地研究这种变异并开发工具，以促进其开发，以培育具有更好最终用途特性的新小麦品种。

Dietary fibre (DF) is an essential component of the diet with established health benefits. Soluble DF may also have unique benefits associated with its high viscosity. However, the daily intake in UK adults is substantially below recommended guidelines. Wheat is the most important source of DF in the UK, with bread providing 20% of the daily intake. Improving wheat DF is therefore an important target. By contrast, high fibre and high viscosity are detrimental when wheat is used as feed for poultry and as raw material for alcohol production in distilling and biofuel plants. We have identified wide variation in the amounts of total and soluble fibre in the Watkins collection of wheats which were collected across the world in the 1930s. This variation will be studied in more detail and tools developed to facilitate its exploitation to produce new wheat cultivars with improved end use properties, in collaboration with a major wheat breeder and with the Scotch Whisky Research Institute