jacob.lage@kws.com

Hybrid wheat has been the elusive target for industry and academia for over 50 years. Several major attempts to commercialize non-chemically based hybrid wheat have been launched, most terminated at the end of the funding period, or when economic milestones became unachievable. One common thread in the boom-and-bust cycle of hybrid wheat research and development is linked to the costs of hybrid seed.

At KWS, we re-started our focus on hybrid wheat over ten years ago, convinced that heterotic pools either exists, or can be created, and that many wheat growers will adopt hybrid wheat if they see a clear benefit. Like others, we identified two key criteria for success: an efficient hybridization system and cost-effective hybrid seed production. Both criteria are closely linked to wheat floral biology.

As a seed company, KWS’ experience is in breeding and seed production, and less on fundamental research. Consequently, we partnered with the University of Sydney to develop an efficient nuclear male sterility hybrid wheat system. Today we are close to achieving this goal and have begun the transition from discovery to implementation and validation.

Of similar importance for the future success of hybrid wheat are the ‘Cost of Goods Sold’ (COGS). Wheat being a self-pollinated crop, the challenge is to improve the cross-pollination abilities of wheat flowers. To achieve this objective, we teamed up with trusted partners in academia and industry, focusing on pollination duration, stigma morphology and receptiveness, floral gaping, anther size and filament length, pollen count etc.

The progress has been impressive, but more is needed. Our understanding of wheat floral traits has advanced, but so far, the focus has predominantly been on exploiting natural variation in wheat. Moving forward, we need to think bigger and look further away for inspiration and genetics. Our goal must be to obtain near-perfect seed set on male-sterile wheat with limited land used for male pollinators, thereby lowering the COGS of commercial hybrid wheat seed.

The level of COGS will inevitable be the driver, or failure, of commercial large-scale hybrid wheat. At KWS we feel optimistic about deploying a new and efficient hybridization system, a hugely important step achieved via a public-private partnership. Similar, we are looking at the wider research community to continue and even expand the focus on floral biology. We believe that only through partnerships can we redesign wheat floral biology to make it a commercially viable hybrid crop globally.