IMPROMALT: Improving winter malting barley quality and developing an understanding of the interactions of introgressions with genetic background

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We will augment existing genotypic and phenotypic information upon elite UK barley varieties to refine key malting quality QTL to more tightly defined intervals. We will then utilise the resources of the UK barley breeding industry to conduct a targeted introgression programme to develop pre-competitive germplasm that combines the top malting attributes of spring barley varieties into winter varieties to improve the sustainability of UK malting barley in the threats of climate change and land competition through the earlier maturity and greater yield of the winter crop. We will utilise the genetic resources developed in this proposal to fine map the QTL and generate a candidate gene list that we will then explore through phenotypic, expression and sequence analyses to identify the likely causal polymorphism in the main candidate for a target. In the process, we will develop QTL near-isogenic pairs, the most tightly defined of which we will use in a time-course experiment to sample the transcriptome at daily stages following imbibition in the malting process.. We will combine RNA-Seq analysis with alignment against the genomic and transcript assemblies being developed for barley, taking account of information being developed under the recently funded barley genome sequencing project (BB/I00663X/1), to align regions of SNP diversity against the genome to identify the gene. The project will not only provide germplasm that will ultimately help sustain the production of a product that contributes over £2.4 billion annually to the exchequer and accounts for 23% of all UK exports in the Food and Drink sector but also provide knowledge and resources to derive a fuller understanding of the action and interaction of genes to provide good malting quality.

The major beneficiaries of this research will be:
The plant breeding community. Initially this will be restricted to the Consortium members, who will be able to access the germplasm and markers to gain a competitive edge in developing new varieties that will increase their royalty earning potential. This will spread to other plant breeders worldwide through either the use of the improved winter varieties in their own crossing programmes and/or the eventual public release of the markers and protocols for selecting improved varieties.
The farming community. Increased usage on winter malting barley would extend the market opportunities for growers and enable them also to spread their harvest load with an earlier maturing crop. Under predicted climate change scenarios, the drought escape mechanism provided by the early maturity of winter barley means that the crop is less susceptible to large fluctuations in grain protein content so that farmers will be more likely to secure a planned-for malting premium.
Maltsters, brewers and distillers. This end user sector will benefit as the development of improved winter barley cultivars means that it has a wider pool of material to select from and, within limits, can effectively switch from one crop type to the other to take account of seasonal variations differentially affecting the overall quality of one, such as the Eastern region barley crop of 2011. Currently, all winter barley malting varieties produce epiheterodendrin and are thus unsuitable for the distilling market. The introgression of the epiheterodendrin null character into the winter barley crop means that the crop can then be considered for use in the distilling industry, opening further market opportunities for Scottish farmers as well as improving the long term sustainability of the industry.
Society. The distilling sector alone contributes over £2.5 billion to the exchequer annually and so contributes strongly to the overall benefit of UK society. In addition, the industry employs around 10,000 directly and 40-50,000 indirectly. The brewing industry contributes over £3 billion to the exchequer annually and accounts for approximately 600,000 direct and indirect employment so the sustainability of the malting, brewing and distilling sector contributes massively to the UK economy.