An international research collaboration being driven out of Western Australia, aims to deliver improved wheat varieties that can better cope with climate change and costly diseases.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
or signup to continue reading
These should be available for commercial production within about five or six years.
Led by the Centre for Crop and Food Innovation (CCFI) at Murdoch University in Perth, the global hunt has started for wheat lines with superior drought, heat and frost tolerance.
This project will assess wheat varieties from Germany, the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia and China.
It stems from a four-year research collaboration between the CCFI, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and China Agricultural University (CAU) that wound-up in 2024.
This first exhaustive wheat pangenome project assembled 17 reference-grade genome assemblies of wheat from varieties used in Australia and China during the past 70 years.
The findings were recently published in Nature, a prestigious scientific journal.
This research uncovered and identified 250,000 structural variations that determine the crop's environmental adaptation, disease resistance and consumer dietary preference.
CCFI director and study co-leader, Rajeev Varshney, said a major outcome of this wheat pangenome project with China was the pinpointing of genes responsible for environmental adaptation and disease resistance.
"From this, we now have critical information that will support efforts in ensuring Australia's wheat breeding programs are fit for the future," professor Varshney said.
"We now have the most detailed source of wheat genetic and genomic information to date and it has given us fascinating insights into wheat's origins, its evolution and its influence on human culture."
For example, the researchers learned that wheat evolved from being a completely spring-grown crop to one that thrives in winter.
"From our research findings, we can deduce that this shift is closely related to climate change during the past 100 years," he said.
Professor Varshney said another significant finding for WA farmers was the team's discoveries about the 1RS chromosome.
"This chromosome contains important genes for resistance to diseases such as powdery mildew and rust," he said.
"This is undergoing a process of rapid evolution, and understanding the changes will pave the way for the creation of new wheat varieties that can better withstand these devastating diseases."
Professor Varshney said the collaborative research with China and its follow-on international wheat pangenome project, which started in late 2023 in collaboration with Germany, would go a long way towards "future proofing" one of the world's most important staple foods.
He said the project with China saw that country injecting funding and technical expertise and was the most exhaustive analysis of the wheat genome ever undertaken, due to the large number of varieties analysed.
"It has led to a much greater understanding of the architecture of wheat and what genes are responsible for key production traits," professor Varshney said.
"It was made possible with a reduction in the cost and time needed to analyse genomic make-up of different phenotypes."
Professor Varshney said the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) had then been keen to extend the research at a global level to search for wheats that would be more adaptable to a warming, drying climate.
This will involve studying the genotypes of 20 leading Australian wheat varieties used across WA, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
In addition to Australia, the International Wheat Pangenome project will have five to 10 varieties studied and genes sequenced from each of the other participating countries.
"We hope we can find the superior haplotypes (fine versions of genes) and genetic markers for tolerance to drought, heat and frost stress - as well as nitrogen use efficiency - in some of the overseas lines that could potentially be transferred into Australian wheat varieties," professor Varshney said.
"We hope the project will deliver genomic tools for wheat breeders in Australia to breed more climate-adapted lines for local grain growers.
"The first project with China has really allowed us to springboard into our new project that will go on for about two years.
"This is the first research and development of its kind due to the international collaboration."
Professor Varshney said Australia was a major wheat exporter known for the quality of its grain.
However he said this latest project would also show the world that Australia was at the cutting edge of breeding and genetics research, which will be especially important for global wheat production going forward.
"We will be putting a genome focus on a large number of varieties and a wide range of growing conditions," professor Varshney said.
About 12 wheat lines had already been sequenced at genome level in January 2025 using state-of-the-art equipment at the Advanced Genomics Platform of WA State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, Murdoch University.
The aim was to finish the other lines from Australia and around the world by the end of 2026.
Professor Varshney said the researchers would then have superior material ready to be used by Australia's wheat breeders.
He said breeding house, Australian Grain Technologies, was a firm supporter of the project, and he was collaborating with other breeding companies, such as InterGrain and LongReach Plant Breeders.
"How quickly the new lines could reach farmers for commercial production will depend on how quickly the lines can get through the breeding pipeline," professor Varshney said.
"In the next phase of the project, it will be essential to work closely with breeding companies and implement the massive genomic information the project is generating to benefit growers in WA and Australia.
"We would hope farmers will start to see some advanced drought, heat and frost tolerant lines within the next five to six years.
"Our job as researchers is to develop the most robust datasets that we can for the breeders to take the lines through the system before they hit the paddock."
