Do shared genetic pathways control drought tolerance and senescence in wheat?

The production of staple crops such as wheat need to be increased by 50 % by 2050 to meet the global demand for food. However, water scarcity represents a major limiting factor for crop production and poses an increasing risk to global wheat production due to climate change. In recent years drought has affected wheat yields in the UK, contributing to 2020's harvest being the smallest for three decades. In this project interdisciplinary approaches will be used to identify new gene targets to improve drought tolerance and secure wheat yields for the future.
The Research Group has recently discovered several transcription factors which delay senescence (ageing) in wheat, which they hypothesise could provide a route to improve drought tolerance, as has been shown in other plant species. A combination of genetic variation studies, knock-out mutants and overexpression lines will be used to ask whether these transcription factors can be used to improve drought tolerance.