DNA STUDIES into the wheat genome keep coming up trumps – and the breakthrough research could herald good news too for other crops.

A new study at the John Innes Centre has isolated a gene controlling shape and size of spikelets in wheat and this breakthrough could help breeders deliver yield increases.

Its team said the underlying genetic mechanism they found is also relevant to inflorescence (floral) architecture in a number of other major cereals including corn, barley and rice.

The genetic identification of this agronomically-relevant trait is a significant milestone in research on wheat, which has a notoriously complex genome. The findings, published in the journal The Plant Cell, give breeders a new tool to accelerate the global quest to improve wheat.

The Wheat Initiative, which co-ordinates global research for wheat, identified floral architecture as a key traits which must be improved if a 1.6% yield increase needed to feed a growing world population is to be achieved.

Dr Scott Boden, from JIC, whose crop genetics laboratory led the study alongside colleagues from Australia and Cambridge, said it was a breakthrough both in lab and field. “This paper is an example of what we are capable of doing in wheat now with a lot of the resources that are coming on board. We have gone from the field to the lab and back again.

"This is a developmental gene that contributes to a lot of agronomically important traits. This knowledge and the resources that come from this study can be used to see if it really does benefit yield."

The research will now move from an academic base, towards giving breeders tools they can work with to optimise floral development and hence increase yield, he added.

The study focused on the genetics behind a specific mutant trait in bread wheat known as paired spikelets, where a wheat inflorescence is formed of two spikelets instead of the usual one. This trait, which bears resemblance to flower production in corn and rice, is the variation that could lead to increase in yield.

Using plant transformation, gene sequencing and speed breeding, researchers investigated lines of wheat displaying paired spikelets, derived from a mapping population called a multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) – which is a population of spring wheat created as a tool to study and identify the genetic origins of relevant traits.

The study revealed that a gene called teosinte branched1 (TB1) regulated wheat inflorescence architecture, promoting paired spikelets and further analysis showed that alleles that modify the function of TB1 were present in a wide range of major modern wheat cultivars used by breeders in the UK and Europe. The variant alleles for TB1 were also present on two of the three wheat genomes of winter and spring wheat.