Why we need to learn more about wheat?

If current experiments can speed up the development of highly resistant wheat varieties, then we may be one step closer to a world free of hunger and malnutrition. Therefore, Swiss researchers are working to develop a genetic fingerprint to predict wheat yield and resistance.

Switzerland has developed 57 different wheat varieties for domestic and foreign markets, including Arnold, Lorenzo and Sailor. Behind each variety in the catalogue is 10 to 15 years of hard work by Swiss plant breeders, but new high-tech methods are expected to shorten the process by several years.

It is indeed a great blessing to have this progress, because time is quite valuable. Wheat is juxtaposed with rice and corn as the "third crop", accounting for more than half of global food consumption. But these crops are facing a variety of threats: diseases, insect pests and bad weather conditions, etc., and these negative factors are exacerbated by the climate change crisis.

Achim Walter, a professor of crop science at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, says the problem is that the genotype of wheat crops (that is, the genetic characteristics of wheat plants) is scarce.

"If we want to feed the world's population, we need more crop varieties and resistant varieties. In addition, these varieties must be of high quality and yield, protect water and soil, and require as few fertilizers and pesticides as possible."

By 2050, the global population is expected to reach even more than 10 billion, and one-third of arable land will be degraded, so the risk is quite high. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says innovation, especially in agriculture, is the core driving force that can help achieve a world free of hunger and malnutrition".

Crop breeding using traditional and cutting-edge technologies is one of the major innovative areas that can make a significant contribution to achieving more sustainable agricultural development. Roland Peter, head of crop breeding at the Swiss Federal Institute for Food Science, Technology and Agriculture, points out that Switzerland already has a pioneering advantage.

"In Switzerland, we have been working a lot on breeding resistant varieties. This allows large-scale agricultural production to be popularized in Switzerland, where farmers do not need to spray pesticides."

If the crop has excellent pest resistance characteristics, then reducing the amount of pesticides can not only help farmers increase income, but also benefit the environment.

Most of the field work was done by a small company working with Agroscope, located in the rural area of the south bank plain of Lake Nashatel. In the Agroscope breeding program, Delley Seed Crops Company (DSP), a subsidiary of Swisssem, the Swiss Association of Seed Manufacturers, is the co-owner of wheat varieties.

Breeders currently take 10 to 15 years to complete the certification of a new wheat variety. At the same time, existing varieties must be monitored so that their traits remain stable year after year, the so-called "conservation". In addition to wheat, DSP also cultivates and sells seeds of soybeans, corn, feed crops, and vegetables.

In his role as a breeding manager at Agroscope, Roland Peter worked hard to keep information from the laboratory and the field unobstructed. He points out that traditional breeding methods and molecular breeding methods have been used in combination and have the potential to shorten field trials. We are working with institutions such as the University of Zurich and the Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich to develop molecular markers for specific traits (e.g., disease resistance). These markers, like small flags on one side, can show whether the crop is resistant to disease. We can then use them for routine breeding."

Recently, Agroscope and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich are working on genome selection breeding methods. The technology still belongs to conventional breeding technology without genetic modification or "editing", but only sequencing multiple genomic loci of crops and then comparing the results with other varieties.

"The purpose of this is to be able to predict the traits of any given crop. Thousands of markers together build the genetic characteristics of crops. If we can combine this information with our field observations to build an intelligent statistical model, then we are expected to predict any traits of any crop by rapid and low-cost genetic fingerprinting and to be able to rapidly predict the yield, quality, and agronomic characteristics of any new variety without the need for hard field experiments, which saves a lot of breeding time and is simply like winning the top spot."

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