The Wonderful World of Wheat

When we think about foods made of wheat, like bread, we often think about the carbohydrates they contain. But wheat flour also contains protein and minerals essential for the human diet. What determines the balance between carbohydrates, protein and minerals? How we can make wheat flour more nutritious? This talk will explore how the rate of ageing of the wheat plant can influence how much carbohydrate, protein and mineral accumulates in wheat grains, which will ultimately become the wheat flour we eat.

Modern wheat is the result of thousands of years of domestication targeting above ground benefits like yield, greener leaves and features that make harvesting more efficient. The underground half of wheat was often neglected in that journey and important root abilities, also called traits, might have been lost. Identifying beneficial root traits in historic wheat landraces and restoring them into our modern cultivars is crucial to support soil health and wheat production. The search for lost root traits in the hidden half of wheat is key for the future of agriculture and food production.

The transition from our ancient ancestors’ hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settlements and cities begins with farming and domesticating crops. Over thousands of years we have selected the “best” seeds to improve our harvests. We’ve used x-ray imaging to try and understand the differences between wild and selectively bred wheat species.