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Discovery Raises Hopes of More Temperature Tolerant Wheat

Gene-editing techniques have helped to identify a temperature tolerance factor that may protect wheat from the increasingly unpredictable challenges of climate change.

Researchers in the group of Professor Graham Moore at the John Innes Center made the discovery during experiments looking at  fertility in plants exposed to either high or . The paper, "DMC1 stabilizes crossovers at high and low temperatures during wheat meiosis," appears in Frontiers in Plant Science.

Wheat fertility and therefore yield is highly influenced by , particularly the initial stages of meiosis when chromosomes from parent cells cross over and pair to create seeds for the .

Meiosis in wheat functions most efficiently at temperatures between 17–23° centigrade. It is known that developing wheat does not cope well with hot temperatures and can also fail during low summer temperatures.

Identifying  that help stabilize wheat fertility outside optimal temperatures is critical if we are to breed climate resilient crops of the future.

Previous research has indicated a major meiotic gene DMC1 as the likely candidate for preserving wheat meiosis during low and high temperatures.

This research follows the earlier breakthrough by the Moore group at the John Innes Center in identifying the wheat gene (ZIP4) responsible for correct chromosome pairing and preservation of wheat yield, but which also prevents the introduction of beneficial new traits from wheat wild relatives by suppressing chromosome exchange.

Using gene editing technology, the researchers have split the dual function of ZIP4 so that it maintains yields but enables wheat to be more easily crossed with wild relatives. This could contribute  in elite varieties, including traits such as heat resilience and disease resistance.

Professor Moore added, "Climate change is likely to have a negative effect on meiosis and therefore on wheat fertility and ultimately crop yields, so screening of germplasm collections to identify heat-tolerant genotypes is a high priority for the future of crop improvement."

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Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”