Increasing wheat drought tolerance and recovery throughout the life cycle through regulation of plant growth mechanisms

水的可获得性是限制全世界农业生产力的主要普遍因素。即使是在像英国这样的气候地区，也有人警告说，到本世纪20年代，干旱可能会破坏粮食生产(英国政府气候变化委员会)。当前极端的气候变化是在作物产量的年增率跟不上预计的粮食需求的时候出现的。作物的抗逆性与高产潜力相结合，需要新的想法和方法。干旱会影响植物在整个发育过程中的生长，特别是早期营养发育和生殖发育。目前没有在作物生命周期的所有阶段提高作物耐旱性的战略，以实现对干旱的耐受性和从干旱中恢复。基因修饰(GM)有希望，因为它可以加速和集中单个或少数基因和机制的遗传变化，有可能提供目前所需的阶跃变化产量改进，但尚未发挥其潜力，为此我们提出了新的策略。到目前为止，通用汽车已经能够提高非生物的压力耐受性，但主要是在没有压力的情况下以产量为代价。生长对干旱特别敏感，比光合作用更敏感。我们最近发现了新的基因，如果目标正确，就可以利用这些基因来提高抗旱性。然而，这些基因还没有在小麦上进行试验。这些是新的植物信号基因，在干旱期间自身调节生长过程，在营养生长期间从干旱中恢复，以及在开花期或生殖发育期间将蔗糖分配给发育中的种子。转基因小麦植株将受到干旱和干旱恢复的影响，对生长、生物量、基因表达、糖分和最终产量的影响将被确定。我们还将研究来自墨西哥国际玉米和小麦改良中心(CIMMYT)的小麦群体中与蔗糖分配和使用有关的基因的遗传变异。这项研究将提供新的知识和策略，新的基因，遗传标记和品种，以提高小麦的抗旱性和小麦在整个生命周期内不同水分供应条件下的产量。通过与CIMMYT和行业的知识交流，技术将迅速部署到新的小麦品种中。

Water availability is the major universal factor that limits agricultural productivity worldwide. Even in climates like UK it is warned that droughts could devastate food production by the 2020s (UK Government Committee on Climate Change). Current extreme climatic variability is coming at a time when the annual rate of crop yield improvement is not keeping pace with the projected demand for food. New ideas and approaches are required for crop resilience combined with high yield potential. Drought can impact plant growth throughout development, with early vegetative development and reproductive development particularly vulnerable. There is currently no strategy to improve crop drought tolerance at all stages of the life cycle to enable tolerance to and recovery from drought. Genetic modification (GM) has promise because it can speed up and focus genetic changes around single or few genes and mechanisms with the potential to provide step-change yield improvements currently required, but has yet not reached its potential for which we propose new strategies. GM so far has been able to increase abiotic stress tolerance, but mostly with yield penalty when no stress occurs. Growth is particularly sensitive to drought, more so than photosynthesis. We have recently discovered new genes that if targeted correctly can be utilised to improve drought tolerance. However, these genes have not yet been tried in wheat. These are novel plant signalling genes that regulate growth processes during drought itself and recovery from drought during vegetative growth and sucrose allocation to developing seeds during the flowering period or reproductive development. Wheat plants genetically modified for these genes will be subject to drought and drought recovery and the impact on growth, biomass, gene expression, sugars and final yield will be determined. We will also examine genetic variation in genes involved in sucrose allocation and use in wheat populations from International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico. This research will provide new knowledge and strategies, new genes, genetic markers and varieties to improve wheat drought tolerance and wheat yields under varying water availability throughout the crop life cycle. Technology will be rapidly deployed into new wheat varieties through knowledge exchange with CIMMYT and industry.