BREAKTHRU: developing soil compaction resistant wheat

迫切需要大幅度提高作物产量，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对可利用土壤的充分利用。然而，土壤会变得太硬，根部无法穿透。这被称为土壤压实，它代表了现代农业面临的一个主要挑战，这是由于田地管理方式的变化和现代农业设备重量的增加。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%，如果再加上干旱胁迫，产量将减少75%。欧洲一半以上的耕地容易压实，造成数十亿英镑的损失。尽管它很重要，但人们对为什么根在坚硬的土壤中会停止生长知之甚少。我们的团队（Pandey et al ., 2021, Science）最近进行了一系列（字面上）突破性的实验，结果表明，根系在破坏了对一种叫做乙烯的植物激素信号的敏感性后，能够穿透高度密实的土壤。BREAKTHRU项目建议利用这一新知识，通过改变小麦根系对乙烯信号的反应，重新设计小麦，使其对硬土壤具有抗性。我们将鉴定根系对乙烯不那么敏感的小麦新品种。然后将使用先进的成像和人工智能方法来测试我们选择的新小麦品种是否能够更好地在夯实的土壤中生长，并更容易捕获养分和水分。最后，我们将在实际的田间条件下种植最有前途的小麦品系，包括用农业机械压实土壤的情况。从这项研究中获得的知识将为控制根系对土壤压实反应的关键基因提供重要的新信息，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，从而支持改善英国的粮食安全。

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.