World population continues to grow at around 73 million people per year, approaching nine billion by 2037. There is a direct need for more cereal production to match the increasing population in the world. Wheat is the No. 1 cereal crop in terms of its global harvested area, approximately 220 milliion hectares in 2023. To date, traditional pure breeding has promoted wheat production to an extreme high level, and how to further improve its yield is a challenging task.

A more promising strategy is to harness the untapped hybrid vigor, which is successfully applied in two other major cereal crops, corn and rice. Here, we report field trials of a hexaploidy hybrid wheat ‘Quanmai 01’ (QM01), which was a hybrid between an advanced male-sterile line and the male pollen donor ‘Shannong 22’ (SN22). In 2022-2023 growing season, under a regular sowing rate of 225 kg/ha, QM01 displayed a 20% yield increase in comparison to SN22; with a reduced sowing rate, ranging from 37.5kg to 187.5kg per hectare with an increment of 37.5kg per hectare, the sowing rate was negatively correlated with the yield increase rate, reflecting a yield hybrid vigor of 11% to 31.8%.

In 2023-2024 growing season, we performed a split-plot trial by considering nitrogen fertilizer, sowing rate and genotypes. Under a sowing rate of 22.5 kg/ha, QM01 had an 8.7% yield increase in comparison to SN22, reaching approximately 9.6 tons/ha; with a sowing rate of 37.5 kg/ha, QM01 had a 3.7% yield increase in comparison to SN22, reaching approximately 9.6 tons/ha. Certainly, there is substantial yield potential in hybrid wheat.

In future, global efforts should be given to deliver a high-throughput, high-quality, economic, and environmentally friendly approach to produce hybrid wheat.