Ancient Chinese wheat holds clues to boosting grain yield
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Researchers at Sichuan Agricultural University in China identified a genetic region in an old variety of wheat that controls how many productive tillers, side shoots that produce grain, a plant develops.
Modern wheat breeding has focused on increasing yield, but may have inadvertently lost genetic diversity important for adapting to changing conditions.
The team studied 182 samples of Chinese endemic wheat, grown in Sichuan Province, to understand the genetics of tiller number, a trait difficult to improve because it’s strongly influenced by the environment. They discovered a specific location on chromosome 5D, named QPTN.sicau-CEW-5D, that significantly impacts the number of productive tillers. Plants with a particular version of this region, called Hap1, consistently produced more tillers without negatively affecting other important traits like spike size.
The researchers confirmed this effect by testing it in an additional 220 wheat varieties from the same region. The team then investigated potential genes within this region, focusing on three candidates: two receptor-like kinases and one immune receptor. Receptor-like kinases play a role in plant development, and a variant in this area could influence how many tillers become fertile.
Plant breeders can now use this information to select for the favorable Hap1 version, speeding up the process of increasing wheat yield in a reliable way, even as climate conditions change.
