How does heterosis affect yield, quality and disease resistance in hybrid wheat?

There is a need to increase global food production to meet growing population sizes, as well to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Currently, to increase the production of staple crops such as wheat, breeding efforts select for improved phenotypes through line breeding. Hybridisation has been shown to greatly improve crops, such as maize and rice, with benefits from the resulting heterosis including increased yields, quality and stress resistance. Hybridisation of wheat has previously not been commercially viable, but with the development of new technologies, producing hybrid wheat seeds now holds great potential. However, we do not yet understand the best ways to combine alleles within hybrid wheat to promote increased yields, quality and disease resistance.
This project will use genetic and genomic approaches to identify combinations of genes beneficial for key agronomic traits. We will investigate whether alleles that are beneficial in conventional homozygous lines can provide benefits in the heterozygous state within hybrids, and whether the maternal or paternal donation of relevant alleles affects the phenotype. This research will provide deeper understanding of the genetics underpinning improved phenotypes in hybrid wheat, as well as being applicable to other plant species.