Scientists at Liverpool University awarded £1.7m to crack genetic code for wheat

Wheat breeders have few genetic tools to help select key agricultural traits for breeding and do not always know the genes responsible for the trait they need.

Scientists, in collaboration with the University of Bristol and the John Innes Centre, will analyse the genome of five varieties of wheat using new DNA sequencing technology to generate tools to help breeders select traits, such as high productivity, for their crop.

Prof Neil Hall and Dr Anthony Hall, from the University’s School of Biological Sciences, will lead the genome sequencing, which will take approximately a year to complete.

Prof Hall says: “New DNA sequencing technology can read 500 million separate letters of DNA in a single day – hundreds of times faster than the systems used to sequence the human genome.

“The wheat genome is more than five times larger than the human genome and so this is one of the most ambitious DNA sequencing projects undertaken to date.”