Food security: the challenge of increasing wheat yield and the importance of not compromising food safety.

T Curtis,N G Halford

doi:10.1111/aab.12108

Abstract

Current wheat yield and consumption is considered in the context of the historical development of wheat, from early domestication through to modern plant breeding, the Green Revolution and wheat’s place as one of the world’s most productive and important crops in the 21st Century. The need for further improvement in the yield potential of wheat in order to meet current and impending challenges is discussed, including rising consumption and the demand for grain for fuel as well as food. Research on the complex genetics underlying wheat yield is described, including the identification of quantitative trait loci and individual genes, and the prospects of biotechnology playing a role in wheat improvement in the future are discussed. The challenge of preparing wheat to meet the problems of drought, high temperature and increasing carbon dioxide concentration that are anticipated to come about as a result of climate change is also reviewed. Wheat yield must be increased while not compromising food safety, and the emerging problem of processing contaminants is reviewed, focussing in particular on acrylamide, a contaminant that forms from free asparagine and reducing sugars during high temperature cooking and processing. Wheat breeders are strongly encouraged to consider the contaminant issue when breeding for yield.

Highlights

The domestication of wheat approximately 10 000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent was perhaps the most important step in humankind’s transition from huntergatherer and nomadic herder to sedentary farmer
One obvious difference was that the grain became much larger, but Shewry (2009) highlights two other key changes associated with domestication: the loss of shattering of the spike at maturity, a trait that ensures seed dispersal in the wild but causes seed loss in agriculture, and the change from hulled forms, in which the glumes are stuck tightly to the seed, to free-threshing forms
The following sections of this review describe recent advances in our knowledge and understanding of the genetics of wheat yield, and how that knowledge could be turned into tools for wheat breeders to meet the challenges of the coming decades

Summary

Introduction

The domestication of wheat approximately 10 000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent was perhaps the most important step in humankind’s transition from huntergatherer and nomadic herder to sedentary farmer. The potential of biotechnology in wheat breeding and the obstacles to its development are considered and studies that predict the effects of global warming and identify the traits that will be important if wheat breeders are to be able to respond to climate change are described.

Results

Conclusion