Testing new genomic methods to accelerate genetic gain in UK winter wheat
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Plant Sciences
Abstract
Theme: Agriculture and Food Security
The project will focus on wheat, Europe's main crop, and the testing of new genomic methods to accelerate genetic gain. Realising the investment of the public and private sector in the generation of next-generation tools is essential to deliver improved wheat varieties to farmer's fields. The project will use a suite of complementary resources to test emerging quantitative genetic approaches, such as genomic selection, in elite wheat populations. The approaches proposed range from field phenotyping, including the employment of ground- and aerial-based sensor technology to bioinformatics and the development of flexible genetic markers for use in breeding. The partnership with RAGT Seeds Ltd is integral to delivering new knowledge directly to breeding. As part of the iCASE studentship the successful applicant will have the opportunity to interact with an interdisciplinary team at RAGT Seeds Ltd including plant breeders, molecular geneticists and statisticians.
The project will focus on wheat, Europe's main crop, and the testing of new genomic methods to accelerate genetic gain. Realising the investment of the public and private sector in the generation of next-generation tools is essential to deliver improved wheat varieties to farmer's fields. The project will use a suite of complementary resources to test emerging quantitative genetic approaches, such as genomic selection, in elite wheat populations. The approaches proposed range from field phenotyping, including the employment of ground- and aerial-based sensor technology to bioinformatics and the development of flexible genetic markers for use in breeding. The partnership with RAGT Seeds Ltd is integral to delivering new knowledge directly to breeding. As part of the iCASE studentship the successful applicant will have the opportunity to interact with an interdisciplinary team at RAGT Seeds Ltd including plant breeders, molecular geneticists and statisticians.
Organisations
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BB/M011194/1 | 01/10/2015 | 31/03/2024 | |||
| 1827426 | Studentship | BB/M011194/1 | 01/10/2016 | 31/03/2021 | Tobias Barber |
| Description | Still in the early stages. Identifying genetic locations of traits which affect wheat yield. These will then be made into markers which can be used by breeders and researchers to screen material to see if they contain the useful genes |
| Exploitation Route | Genetics markers used by researchers and wheat breeders to actively improve UK wheat. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Description | Through talking at the NIAB open days to industry professionals I informed them about the impact that interspecific introgressions have had on modern bread wheat and the value they have added to the gene-pool. My project aims to dissect these blocks which will be of benefit to plant breeders and wheat farmers, this is to come. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | Biomaker challenge 2019 - Cambridge University. Project: MACRO IMAGER: a low-cost multi-purpose large area macro digital photography phenotyping station |
| Amount | £750 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2020 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Description | Cambridge Global Food Security - travel fund |
| Amount | £500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Global Food Security |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2018 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Description | FOLLOW ON FUND: Biomaker challenge 2019 - Cambridge University. Project: MACRO IMAGER: a low-cost multi-purpose large area macro digital photography phenotyping station |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2020 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Description | GARNet Monogram travel fund |
| Amount | £200 (GBP) |
| Organisation | GARNet |
| Sector | Learned Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2018 |
| End | 04/2018 |
| Description | Genetics Society Travel Grant : International Wheat Congress, Saskatoon, Canada, July 2019 |
| Amount | £750 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Genetics Society |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2019 |
| End | 07/2019 |
| Description | OpenPlant Fund - "Harvesting the genetic value of interspecific wheat introgressions" |
| Amount | £4,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | OpenPlant Fund |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Start | 07/2017 |
| End | 09/2018 |
| Description | OpenPlant Fund - Follow-on funding for project "Harvesting the genetic value of interspecific wheat introgressions" |
| Amount | £1,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | OpenPlant Fund |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Start | 04/2018 |
| End | 10/2018 |
| Description | Peter Warnock Travel Fund - University of Cambridge |
| Amount | £600 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 11/2019 |
| Description | NIAB Open day field tours |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Giving tours of the field trials as part of the NIAB open days. Talking about wheat projects in general at NIAB as well as talking more in depth about my project and its relevance to UK wheat breeding. Multiple groups visiting in batches consisting of members of research institutes, universities and commercial breeding companies. Visitors were mainly UK based with some international attendees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017,2018 |
| Description | Poster presentation at BBSRC executive visit to Cambridge University (SLCU) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I presentated of a poster of my work ' Interrogation of multi-season yield and yield component data in UK elite pre-breeding population' to BBSRC executives during their visit to Cambridge University (SLCU). DTP students were selected to represent the different departments and partner institutes across the range of BBSRC research themes. I was there representing NIAB and the 'Bioscience for sustainable agriculture snd food theme'. I discussed my work with BBSRC executives and heads of departments from the university. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Poster presentation at MONOGRAM April 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I presented a poster at MONOGRAM 2018. "The Monogram Network consists of UK based researchers with an active interest in small grain cereal and grass (including the C4 energy grasses) research. Commercial scientists and plant breeders are active members and provide the link between Monogram science and commercial exploitation. Monogram includes both basic and more applied research and its members span disciplines including plant genetics, physiology, pathology, breeding, and bioinformatics. We also have extensive expertise in outreach activities and links with industry." My poster was entitled "Harvesting the genetic value of interpecific wheat introgressions", over 250 people attended the conference and the poster session was very popular. I spoke in depth to many people about my project and made some useful contacts at other institutions. This was funded by the GARNet travel fund and I presented my OpenPlant funded project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation at the NIAB bioinformatics meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentations at the NIAB Bioinformatics meetings, giving updates on the progress of the bioinformatics portion of my PhD. Audience comprised of staff and students at NIAB Cambridge and, via Skype, staff and students from NIAB EMR in Kent all with an interest in bioinformatics. This sparked good discussions on other ways to perform analyses and tips as well as future directions to take. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| Description | Presented poster at 'Plant Quantitative Genetics: from Theory into Practice', Birmingha, November 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented poster and flash presentation at Plant Quant to range of parties interested in plant quantitative genetics. Group consisted of industry and academia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presented poster at the 1st International Wheat Congress, Saskatoon, Canada |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented a poster at the 1st International Wheat Congress, in Saskatoon, Canada July 2019. Poster titled 'Interrogation of multi-season yield andyield component data in a UK elite pre-breeding population' in the wheat improvement poster session. IWC had over 1000 attendees and very busy poster sessions. I spent a lot of time talking to other postgraduate students, post-docs, project PIs, commercial breeders and other industry workers about my work. I gained valuable feedback on my work as well as discussing potential future collaborations with other institutions and companies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Project seminar during visit to Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics (Olomouc, Czech Republic) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Around 35 PIs, post-docs and PhD students attended a seminar I gave which visiting the Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics in Olomouc, Czech Republic. The title of my talk was "Harvesting the genetic value of interspecific wheat introgressions". I was visiting to arrange the chromosome flow sorting for sequencing of a near isogenic pair of wheat lines. I had visited the year before for more flow sorting and I presented my initial findings from that analysis. The talk led to a extended discussion on the direction of the project and several interesting new ideas were spoken about Travel was paid for by the Cambridge Global Food Security travel fund. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |