The West Australian, Australia, 19.01.2007 (zitiert von GENET-news)
please read more about this non-GE wheat at: http://www.gene.ch/genet/2004/Aug/msg00004.html
Scientists have developed a salttolerant wheat which could allow farmers to crop a third of the 1.8 million hectares of agricultural land lost to salinity across the Wheatbelt.
A common weed called sea barley grass, which grows in soils almost as salty as sea water, has been crossbred with a traditional wheat variety to produce a salt and waterlogging tolerant cereal.
Project leader Tim Colmer, of the Co-operative Research Centre for the Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity, said the new wheat strain could be sown on moderately salt-affected soils which contained up to one quarter the salt levels of sea water. At these levels, it is no longer viable for farmers to grow traditional grain varieties because of severe losses in crop yields.
While the bulk of wheat grown in WA is the high-value bread or noodle variety, the hybrid wheat produces smaller grains and will be used in the stock feed industry.
The new wheat is the result of five years work by University of WA researchers – in collaboration with the University of Adelaide – and uses traditional crossing between related species. It does not include genetically modified organisms.
Field trials are due within 18 months and, if successful, a new variety is set to be commercially available within four years.
Dr Colmer said farmers could use the wheat on hundreds of thousands of hectares of waterlogged country across the Wheatbelt which is currently not cropped, potentially adding millions of dollars annually to WAís grain industry.
About 1000ha – or 10 per cent – of Tammin farmer Tony Yorkís property is salt-affected and is no longer viable for cropping with existing grain varieties.
Mr York predicts that the new wheat will give him the option to crop up to half of that area.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia
Press Release, 01.02.2007 (zitiert von GENET-news)
Two recently discovered genes from an ancient wheat variety have led to a major advance in breeding new salt-tolerant varieties.
In a recent set of papers published in the journal Plant Physiology researchers describe the two genes – known as Nax1 and Nax2. The genes work by excluding salt from different parts of the plant: one from the roots, the other from the leaves. The discovery of the two genes is the subject of international patents.
„The two genes originally came from a wheat ancestor, Triticum monococcum,“ says research team leader, CSIRO Plant Industry’s Dr Rana Munns. „They were unwittingly crossed into a durum wheat line about 35 years ago and are normally not present in any modern wheat.“
„Over six per cent of the world’s arable land is affected by salinity. Salt tolerant crops can provide farmers with income for remediation, as well as helping to stabilise soil from wind and water erosion.“
The project began when the CSIRO team used a highly accurate selection method – based on their understanding of how plants tolerate salt – to identify wheat varieties that could cope with higher salinity. They were particularly interested in the premium-priced durum wheat, which is much more salt-sensitive than bread wheat.
„We screened a hundred durum wheats from the Australian Winter Cereals Collection at Tamworth, which contains tens of thousands of wheat types,“ Dr Munns says. „Highlighting the fact that the science of plant breeding sometimes relies on an element of good fortune, we were lucky to find the durum variety with the ancient genes straight away, otherwise we might have been looking for years.“
The team used their knowledge of the two genes to construct molecular markers, which are now in use in CSIRO’s wheat breeding program. A durum wheat variety as salt-tolerant as bread wheat is in advanced field trials and could be commercially available in three years. Even better durum wheats are in development and the program has been expanded to include bread wheat.
„Bread wheat is quite tolerant to salt, but we think it too can be improved. Our aim is to eventually produce wheats able, like barley, to grow in highly saline soils,“ Dr Munns says.
Over six per cent of the world’s arable land is affected by salinity. Salt tolerant crops can provide farmers with income for remediation, as well as helping to stabilise soil from wind and water erosion.
The research is a collaborative project between CSIRO, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, the University of Adelaide and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, with support from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and the CRC for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity.
Physiological Characterization of Two Genes for Na+ Exclusion in Durum Wheat, Nax1 and Nax2 – Richard A. James, Romola J. Davenport, and Rana Munns – Plant Physiology, December 2006, Vol. 142, pp. 1537-1547, www.plantphysiol.org/
A Sodium Transporter (HKT7) Is a Candidate for Nax1, a Gene for Salt Tolerance in Durum Wheat1 – Shaobai Huang, Wolfgang Spielmeyer, Evans S. Lagudah, Richard A. James, J. Damien Platten, Elizabeth S. Dennis, and Rana Munns – Plant Physiology, December 2006, Vol. 142, pp. 1718-1727, www.plantphysiol.org/
HKT1;5 – like cation transporters linked to Na+ exclusion loci in wheat, Nax2 and Kna1 – Caitlin S Byrt, J Damien Platten, Wolfgang Spielmeyer, Richard A James, Evans S Lagudah, Elizabeth S Dennis, Mark Tester, Rana Munns – In press, Plant Physiology, www.plantphysiol.org/