BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme: Building Robustness in Crops (BRIC) Partner Grant

气候变化正在挑战作物生产和我们生产足够高质量食物来养活不断增长的人口的能力。大多数现代农作物品种的培育都不能承受多变或极端的气候条件，也不能可靠地生产。随着农业系统在2050年前朝着净零的方向发展，我们需要开发出不仅能适应气候扰动、在减少的土地面积上获得高产的作物，而且还能在为我们提供可持续、健康的食物的同时，减少对农业化学品投入的依赖。作物健壮性建设综合方案的目的是提供遗传多样性和知识、创新技术和培训，以便在更好地了解以最少投入进行可持续生产所需的农艺做法的情况下，开发健壮的高产作物。我们的研究计划是通过与行业协商来确定关键问题和挑战的。我们将采用跨学科的方法，将我们在遗传学/基因组学方面的研究专长与计算生物学，建模和成像相结合，我们将通过诺维奇可持续发展研究所与社会科学家和气候科学家合作，以提高我们的专业知识的广度。这些方法将使我们能够提供作物育种模型，预测基因对形态的影响，并为作物改良提供有针对性的方法，如生育力，活力，耐寒性，抗寒性，传粉者吸引力，耐旱性和草食动物抗性。我们将与植物育种行业、种植者、政策制定者和更广泛的利益相关者团体合作，确保我们产生的知识将推动整个行业的发展和改进。我们将为英国和全球作物改良建立资源和技术。我们将在油菜和豌豆中开发和种植遗传多样性小组，以确定可用于未来作物品种的有益性状。我们与合作者和合作伙伴一起提供的实地资源将成为其他研究机构和行业可以使用的社区资源。这将允许利用伴随的遗传资源来整合新的育种目标，如改善开花时间，产量，结构，质量和抗病性，使英国育种计划能够开发强大的新品种。我们将提高我们在芸苔属和豌豆作物中的世界领先的基因组编辑能力，提高转化效率和组织再生。提高能力将使我们能够在作物植物中设计更复杂的基因途径，并使开发可在田间进行测试的作物的进展更快。我们将使用芸苔属和豌豆，以及小麦和模式物种，研究基因控制和调节植物性状的机制以及温度等环境因素对这些调节机制的影响。这将为我们的基因组编辑协议和植物承受波动环境条件所需的遗传学的发展提供信息。研究所战略计划提供了一个绝佳的机会，可以让一大批专家调查人员结盟，每个人都拥有专业技能，但都朝着一个共同的目标努力，以应对一些社会最大的挑战。我们将在BBSRC以前在人员和资源方面的投资的基础上，使用我们现有的最先进的设备和技术。我们将与其他BBSRC研究所，NIAB，大学和行业的合作者和合作伙伴合作，结合我们的专业知识，汇集我们的资源，进行令人兴奋的实验设计，这些设计现在才变得可行。

Climate change is challenging crop production and our ability to produce enough high-quality food to feed a growing population. Most modern crop varieties have not been bred to withstand and produce reliably under variable or extreme climatic conditions. As agricultural systems progress towards net-zero by 2050 we need to develop crops that are not only resilient to climate perturbations producing high yields on reduced area of land but that have the developmental robustness to withstand pests and disease whilst providing us with sustainable, healthy food, with reduced dependence upon agrochemical inputs. The aim of the Building Robustness in Crops ISP is to deliver genetic diversity and knowledge, innovative technologies and training to allow robust high-yielding crops to be developed with a better understanding of the agronomic practices required for sustainable production with minimum inputs. Our research programme has been developed through consultation with industry to identify key problems and challenges. We will use an interdisciplinary approach combining our research expertise in genetics/genomics with computational biology, modelling and imaging and we will engage with social scientists and climate scientists through the Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development to enhance the breadth of our expertise. These approaches will enable us to deliver models for crop breeding that predict the effects of genes on morphology and enable a targeted approach to crop modification for traits such as fertility, vigour, chilling tolerance, winter hardiness, pollinator attraction, drought tolerance and herbivore resistance. We will work with the plant breeding industry, growers, policy makers and broader stakeholder groups to ensure that the knowledge we produce will drive development and improvements across the sector.We will build resources and technologies for both UK and global crop improvement. We will develop and grow genetic diversity panels in oilseed rape and pea to identify beneficial traits which can be incorporated in future crop varieties. The field-grown resources that we deliver with our collaborators and partners will be a community resource that can be used by other research institutions and industry. This will allow exploitation of accompanying genetic resources for incorporation of novel breeding targets such as improved flowering time, yield, architecture, quality, and disease resistance enabling UK breeding programmes to develop robust new varieties.We will improve our world-leading genome editing capabilities in Brassica and pea crops enhancing transformation efficiencies and regeneration of tissue. Improved capability will allow us to engineer more complex pathways of genes within crop plants and allow faster progress to be made in developing crops that can then be tested in the field.Using Brassica and pea, as well as wheat and model species, we will investigate the mechanisms by which genes control and regulate plant traits and the influence environmental factors such as temperature have on these regulatory mechanisms. This will inform development of our genome editing protocols and the genetics needed for plants to withstand fluctuating environmental conditions.An Institute Strategic Programme provides an outstanding opportunity to align a large group of expert investigators, each with specialist skills but all working towards a common goal to tackle some of societies greatest challenges. We will build on previous BBSRC investment in both people and resources, using the state-of-the-art equipment and technology available to us. We will work with collaborators and partners at other BBSRC institutes, NIAB, universities and in industry, combining our expertise and pooling our resources to undertake exciting experimental designs that are only now becoming feasible.