Objective
Water is essential to sustaining human and environmental health but is already at scarcity level in some Eastern and Southern Mediterranean countries. Agriculture is by far the largest user of water resources accounting for around 75% of consumption, but n ever the less water remains a major determinant of crop yield. Under rain-fed conditions, characterised by low and uncertain rainfall, Durum wheat is one of the most widely cultivated crops. This project seeks to use a powerful systems-biology approach com bining genomics, crop physiology and agronomy to generate Durum wheat cultivars that have higher and more stable yields under Mediterranean drought conditions. The central thrust of the project is to both identify existing variation in Durum wheat germpl asm and to generate novel genetic variation for the stability of yield under drought stress (SYDS) in Durum wheat. The project will generate a novel mutant population and use these lines to establish TILLING for the first time in Durum wheat. This popul ation will be used for forward and reverse genetic approaches to identify lines with enhanced SYDS and to understand how the structure and expression of specific genes contribute to the variation of yield trait components under Mediterranean conditions.
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP6-2003-INCO-MPC-2
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Funding Scheme
STREP - Specific Targeted Research ProjectCoordinator
HARPENDEN
United Kingdom