Wheat Hub - The Need for a Wheat Hub

Associate Professor Sigrid Heuer and colleagues were successful in securing funding for the Wheat Hub from the Australian Research Council and the Grains Research and Development Corporation allowing the commencement of research in 2015.

The Mission for the Wheat Hub was to enhance productivity and secure high grain quality for wheat in the hot and dry Australian climate. In order to do this, our specific goals were to:

Develop wheat with combined heat and drought tolerance by advancing existing knowledge and technologies and transferring wheat material and knowhow to breeding programs
Elucidate mechanisms and molecular markers for combined heat and drought tolerance by exploring genetic diversity in wheat
Identify mechanisms and genetic diversity for high yielding wheat with efficient nitrogen recycling and high grain protein
Build human capacity in molecular breeding and provide breeders access to the latest scientific developments and technologies
Develop and test high-throughput field phenotyping tools for Australian breeders

With the departure of A/Prof. Heuer to Rothamsted Research, A/Prof Delphine Fleury became Director of the Wheat Hub and here she presents some of the background to this very successful collaboration.