NEWS

UWA PhD student Tanushree Halder digs into wheat’s root traits

WHEAT

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important staple crops globally, serving as a primary food source for millions of people. However, wheat production faces numerous challenges, including climate change, heat stress, soil degradation, and pests. At Wheat Research, our mission is to enhance wheat resilience and productivity through cutting-edge research in plant genetics, advanced breeding techniques, and stress physiology. Our focus is on improving heat tolerance, optimizing root architecture for better nutrient uptake, and developing innovative strategies for sustainable wheat cultivation.

Challenges of Wheat Production

Wheat (Triticum spp.), the most important cereal crop in the world, has been significantly contributed to food, animal feeds and the world economy. Wheat demand has increased extensively, but its production is challenged by different abiotic stresses such as heat, drought, and salinity. Wheat is a polyploid species with a large and complicated genome, which is a major challenge for precise improvement in wheat. Therefore, comprehensive investigations, including physiological, biochemical, anatomical, molecular genetics and breeding are required to develop high-yielding and climate resilience wheat varieties.

Research Focus of Wheat Genetic Group

Our research group focuses on root trait improvement in wheat for developing high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties. Root system architecture (RSA) is the key plant part for supplying water and nutrients and providing anchorage to the plant in any environmental conditions, and thus different root traits play a crucial role in plant growth and development. However, due to the challenges of studying this below-ground plant parts, the role of RSA in different stresses, particularly heat stress, is still limited. Our research group investigates phenotype, physiology, biochemistry, cytology, anatomy, genetics and breeding to contribute to the development of heat-resilient wheat varieties. We collaborate with other universities and research organizations to conduct research. Currently, we are collaborating with The UWA Institute of Agriculture, Australia, and the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh for conducting a research project, “Unravelling the role of root traits for improving heat stress tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)”, which is partially funded by SAU Research System.