Worldwide, crop yields are reduced by 20% to 30% every year due to pest and disease. Protecting crops with pesticides is expensive, environmentally unfriendly and unsustainable. The wild relatives of crops represent a treasure trove of genetic resistance, however, introducing this resistance into our elite crops through traditional breeding is like crossing a racehorse with a donkey; it takes many years to combine the best of both worlds. However, if we could clone enough disease resistance genes from the wild relatives, then these could be delivered as transgenes into their domesticated brethren. A stack of multiple resistance genes holds great promise for long-lasting, i.e. durable disease resistance.

Faced with this task, we have developed fast, new and efficient methods for gene discovery and cloning which use mutant and natural populations followed by sequence alignment to locate genes. We also co-developed a method for halving the generation time of wheat and other crops, in a controlled environment, dramatically speeding up capabilities for research and breeding purposes.

Our focus is on wheat and its major diseases. Our long-term aim is to engineer pyramids of resistance genes against major diseases of wheat. I will present our enabling technologies and a roadmap for sustainable, disease resistant GM wheat.