Maintenance of UK bread baking quality: Trends in wheat quality traits over 50 years of breeding and potential for future application of genomic-assisted selection.

Improved selection of wheat varieties with high end-use quality contributes to sustainable food systems by ensuring productive crops are suitable for human consumption end-uses. Here, we investigated the genetic control and genomic prediction of milling and baking quality traits in a panel of 379 historic and elite, high-quality UK bread wheat (Triticum eastivum L.) varieties and breeding lines.

Prediction of near-term climate change impacts on UK wheat quality and the potential for adaptation through plant breeding.

Wheat is a major crop worldwide, mainly cultivated for human consumption and animal feed. Grain quality is paramount in determining its value and downstream use. While we know that climate change threatens global crop yields, a better understanding of impacts on wheat end-use quality is also critical.

Trade-offs in the genetic control of functional and nutritional quality traits in UK winter wheat.

A complex network of trade-offs exists between wheat quality and nutritional traits. We investigated the correlated relationships among several milling and baking traits as well as mineral density in refined white and whole grain flour. Our aim was to determine their pleiotropic genetic control in a multi-parent population over two trial years with direct application to practical breeding.

Defining the physiological determinants of low nitrogen requirement in wheat.

Nitrogen (N) is a major nutrient limiting productivity in many ecosystems. The large N demands associated with food crop production are met mainly through the provision of synthetic N fertiliser, leading to economic and ecological costs. Optimising the balance between N supply and demand is key to reducing N losses to the environment.