Potential abiotic stress targets for modern genetic manipulation.

Research into crop yield and resilience has underpinned global food security, evident in yields tripling in the past 5 decades. The challenges that global agriculture now faces are not just to feed 10+ billion people within a generation, but to do so under a harsher, more variable, and less predictable climate, and in many cases with less water, more expensive inputs, and declining soil quality. The challenges of climate change are not simply to breed for a "hotter drier climate," but to enable resilience to floods and droughts and frosts and heat waves, possibly even within a single growing season.

Proton-pumping pyrophosphatase homeolog expression is a dynamic trait in bread wheat ().

Proton-pumping pyrophosphatases (H-PPases) have been shown to enhance biomass and yield. However, to date, there has been little work towards identify genes encoding H-PPases in bread wheat () (s) and limited knowledge on how the expression of these genes varies across different growth stages and tissue types. In this study, the IWGSC database was used to identify two novel genes, and , and elucidate the complete homeolog sequences of the three known genes, bringing the total number of bread wheat s from 9 to 15.

Improved Yield and Photosynthate Partitioning in AVP1 Expressing Wheat () Plants.

A fundamental factor to improve crop productivity involves the optimization of reduced carbon translocation from source to sink tissues. Here, we present data consistent with the positive effect that the expression of the H-PPase () has on reduced carbon partitioning and yield increases in wheat. Immunohistochemical localization of H-PPases (TaVP) in spring wheat Bobwhite L.

Genetics of Na exclusion and salinity tolerance in Afghani durum wheat landraces.

Background: Selecting for low concentration of Na in the shoot provides one approach for tackling salinity stress that adversely affects crop production. Novel alleles for Na exclusion can be identified and then introduced into elite crop cultivars.

Results: We have identified loci associated with lower Na concentration in leaves of durum wheat landraces originating from Afghanistan.

Image-based phenotyping for non-destructive screening of different salinity tolerance traits in rice.

Background: Soil salinity is an abiotic stress wide spread in rice producing areas, limiting both plant growth and yield. The development of salt-tolerant rice requires efficient and high-throughput screening techniques to identify promising lines for salt affected areas. Advances made in image-based phenotyping techniques provide an opportunity to use non-destructive imaging to screen for salinity tolerance traits in a wide range of germplasm in a reliable, quantitative and efficient way.