This document summarizes 9 research projects funded by the Crop Improvement Research Club (CIRC) to improve wheat, barley and oilseed rape crops. The projects investigate topics like measuring root function in wheat, developing methods to quantify root architecture, stimulating pest resistance with sunlight, understanding factors that influence bread quality, improving malting efficiency, and controlling pod shatter in oilseed rape. The goal is to increase productivity, yield and quality through a better understanding of genetics, physiology and processing. CIRC provided £7 million in funding and BBSRC contributed additional support through 10 PhD studentships aligned with the projects.

2. Measuring root function
in wheat
• A multidisciplinary team at Rothamsted
Research and Lancaster University with
expertise in plant and crop physiology, root-
soil interactions, soil physics, crop genetics
and geophysics is investigating how
electromagnetic inductance can be used to
rapidly measure soil moisture patterns
beneath wheat.
• This new technology will advance our
understanding of how genetically controlled
differences in root system architecture affect
yield in water-limited environments.
• The new method will be tested and
developed with approximately 20 UK wheat
lines with variations such as rooting, drought
tolerance, and biomass, that have been
selected with wheat breeders.
There is an urgent need for new
root phentotyping methods so that
hypotheses regarding root function
can be tested in a realistic field
environment.
Dr. Richard Whalley, Rothamsted Research

3. New roots for innovation
• Researchers at the University of Nottingham
and The James Hutton Institute are developing
new systems to quickly and cheaply quantify
root quality and architecture in crops.
• Roots are an untapped resource for plant
breeders. Crops with better root systems have
increased access to the water and nutrients they
need to thrive, which leads to improved yields
for farmers.
• The project has developed a process to rapidly
capture images of root systems at a cost of
roughly £0.23 per unit.
• The data generated is being validated using field
trials and 3D imaging so that genetic variation
within Wheat, Barley and Oil Seed Rape can be
accurately linked to root development.
The funding from CIRC has allowed
us to build upon an on-going UK-
China collaboration to understand
how genetic variation effects the
root systems of arable crops.
Prof. Martin Broadley, Nottingham University
© University of Nottingham, taken by Lisa Gilligan-Lee,
owned by Marketing, Communications and Recruitment Dept.

4. Stimulating pest
resistance with sunlight
• UV-B radiation in sunlight is an important
regulatory stimulus for plants and helps
them orchestrate the expression of
numerous genes involved in metabolism,
defence against pests, development, and
other processes.
• Attacks by pests and pathogens cause
significant losses to oilseed rape crops and
farmers incur considerable expense trying
to counter this problem with pesticides.
• Researchers at Glasgow University are
exploring the role of UV-B in regulating
plant growth and development to
understand whether selecting oilseed rape
plants with enhanced UV-B perception or
signalling would lead to crops with
increased pest resistance.
We have found that exposing
oilseed rape plants to UV-B
increases their resistance to
herbivory by diamond back
moth larvae and slugs.
Prof. Gareth Jenkins, University of Glasgow

5. Understanding bread
quality
• Bread is an essential dietary staple, and makes
significant contributions to our daily intakes of
energy, protein, fibre, minerals and vitamins.
• The quality of bread is determined by gluten
strength and the stability of the bubbles formed
in the dough. Bubble-stability controls how
dough bubbles coalesce during baking, enabling
the fine texture typical of UK sliced bread.
• While we know how to influence dough strength
by breeding varieties of wheat containing
specific gluten proteins, currently the factors
affecting bubble-stability are poorly understood.
• Prof. Peter Shewry is investigating how
endogenous wheat lipids, which account for 2-
3% of flour, influence bubble-stability and will
generate new targets for plant breeders
producing wheat varieties for bread-making.
This project brings together a
unique combination of the skills
and facilities available at
Rothamsted Research and the
Institute of Food Research.
Prof. Peter Shewry, Rothamsted Research

6. Improving malting
efficiency
• The brewing and distilling industries are of
enormous economic importance to the UK,
using almost 2 million tonnes of UK-grown
barley every year.
• During malting – the first step in brewing and
distilling – some of the starch in the barley grain
is broken down and the grain starts to sprout.
These undesirable features reduce the amount
of starch available for conversion to alcohol, and
necessitate processing of the malt to remove
roots and shoots.
• The aim of this project is to obtain and exploit
new information about metabolism in the
germinating barley grain in order to enhance
malting efficiency in the brewing and distilling
industries.
With a market value of £20bn for
the brewing industry alone, even
a small reduction in starch loss
during malting would have huge
economic benefits.
Prof Alison Smith, John Innes Centre
© John Innes Centre

7. Stopping pod shatter in
oilseed rape
• The successful domestication of crops depends
upon the plant's ability to hold its seeds until
harvest. The problem of controlling seed
dispersal was solved thousands of years ago for
cereal crops but is still an issue for oilseed rape.
• The average annual loss for farmers due to
premature fruit opening, known as pod shatter,
is more than 10%, and can exceed 70% in
particularly poor harvesting conditions.
• With a growing population and changing climate
patterns, the challenge of global food security
has never been greater, and to meet our needs
the performance of major crops must improve.
• Professor Lars Ostergaard from the John Innes
Centre is working with a team of researchers to
control pod shatter in oilseed rape by using
induced genetic variation.
If our discoveries are bred into
crops in the EU, an increase in
oilseed rape yield of 15% would
increase farm-gate value by
€2 Billion. Prof. Lars Ostergaard, JIC

8. Improving photosynthesis
in wheat
• Ensuring food security is a major challenge
given the projected need to increase world food
production by 70% by 2050 (FAO forecasts).
• Improving photosynthetic performance in crop
plants would result in higher yields and more
efficient usage of nitrogen and other resources.
• Scientists at Rothamsted Research and the
University of Essex are exploring the existing
variation of photosynthetic capacity in wheat.
• The researchers are using multiple methods to
screen existing wheat germplasm to identify
which plants use light most effectively and
should be used in future breeding programmes.
• The project will also show how photosynthesis
can be genetically manipulated by producing
transgenic wheat plants, with altered levels of
SBPase and Rubisco.
This project exploits the natural
variation of photosynthesis in
wheat to produce superior lines.
Prof. Martin Parry, Rothamsted Research

9. 9
Crop Improvement Research Club
£7M to improve the productivity and quality of wheat,
barley and oil seed rape for use in food.
CIRC launched in 2011 as a partnership between BBSRC,
a consortium of 14 companies and the Scottish Government.
15 research projects are investigating:
BBSRC has aligned further funding for ten PhD studentships with the projects.
• Root Function
• Pests and Diseases
• Processability
• Productivity