Email: cristobal.uauy@jic.ac.uk

Wheat is an indispensable global crop and the major crop of the UK and Western Europe. With a projected population of 10 billion by 2050, the need for sustainable wheat production is urgent. The Delivering Sustainable Wheat (DSW) research programme is a cross-institute strategic programme that will run from 2023 – 2028.

It brings together the complementary skills of four research institutes (John Innes Centre, Rothamsted Research, The Quadram Institute and Earlham Institute), five universities (Bristol, Imperial College, Lancaster, Leeds and Nottingham) and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, to address critical challenges in wheat health, yield, and production.

The DSW programme aims to address these challenges by enhancing wheat production sustainably and improving human nutrition, by applying our biological knowledge of key traits for the benefit of wheat consumers.

The programme also invests in pre-breeding to ensure that the new traits, genes, knowledge, and new types of wheat are fed into breeding, farming, and food production, to help safeguard this vital crop for the future.

More information can be found at https://designingfuturewheat.org.uk/.