Researchers at the University of York have created a new modified wheat variety that increases grain production by up to 12 per cent.
Wheat is one of the most important food crops in the world, providing 20 per cent of human calories; with ever increasing global food demand, increasing crop yield is critically important.
Wheat breeders work hard to increase yield to meet global demand, but since the ‘green revolution’ of the 1960s, the rate of yield increase has been slowing and is currently less than 1 per cent per year.
Most improvements have been made by breeding varieties that produce higher numbers of grain, but it should also be possible to increase yield by producing plants with bigger grains. When this has been achieved, however, it is accompanied by a decrease in grain numbers.
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