INTERNATIONAL WHEAT YIELD PARTNERSHIP

One of the Wheat Initiative’s key aims, increasing wheat yield and developing new wheat varieties adapted to different geographical regions, is delivered by the International Wheat Yield Partnership.

The International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) is an international partnership of research funders and research organisations. The Partnership was instigated by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2012. IWYP represents a long-term, global endeavour that utilizes a collaborative approach to bring together funding from public and private research organisations from a large number of countries.

The Partnership will support both core infrastructure and facilitate transnational open calls for research, all targeted at raising the yield potential of wheat.

Over the first five years, the growing list of partners aims to invest up to US$100 million. All partners are committed to transparency, collaboration, open communication of results, data sharing as well as improved coordination to maximize global impact and eliminate duplication of effort.

IWYP is an independent research activity but, as with all public wheat research activities, IWYP will help the Wheat Initiative to fulfil its mission to "co-ordinate wheat research and contribute to global food security."

INTERNATIONAL WHEAT YIELD PARTNERSHIP ANNUAL REPORT 2018-2019

IWYP is pleased to present the 2018/19 International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) Annual Report, detailing the progress that has been made over the last 12 months. IWYP has continued to strengthen its abilities to fulfill its mission of providing the means to make major gains in wheat yield potential through discoveries and the provision of enhanced germplasm to both public and private breeding organizations around the world. The IWYP Science Program has expanded with additional research projects that strengthen our current research areas and bring in valuable new expertise from other geographies where wheat is an important commodity and where significant investments are made in the academic research arena.

IWYP is currently comprised of over 50 scientific research institutions carrying out 38 research projects spread over 14 countries. Further, IWYP has also begun the expansion of its translational capabilities with two new pre-breeding Hubs, one in the US and one in the UK, planned to be operational in the first half of 2020.

They will be supported and managed as public-private partnerships by 13 public sector and 9 private company investor/partners toaccelerate the delivery of IWYP discoveries in elite winter wheat germplasm. These new Hubs will both complement and feed off the outputs of the main IWYPHub for spring wheat at CIMMYT.

As IWYP comes to the end of its first 5-year Program of Work, we have focused this past year on raising the financial resources for a second 5-year phase that puts more emphasis on creating “trait packages” in elite lines with higher yield potential for delivery to breeders around the world. At the time of writing, a significant proportion of the required funds has been pledged.

IWYP’s research strategy is based on finding new genetics that leads to optimized and more efficient photosynthesis through the production of higher biomass and increased radiation use efficiency (“source”) coupled with discovering genetic variation that produces increased numbers and sizes of grains (“sink”). Many processes underpinning these yield traits have been screened, in many cases for the first time, in large numbers of cultivated wheats, land races and wild relatives. Many of our cutting-edge discoveries have been published in leading scientific journals. These illustrate new opportunities for the global wheat breeding community and the means of generating higher yield potential.

Significant new genetic variation has been found for almost all of the physiological and phenotypic traits assayed, and many examples are given in this Annual Report. For example, over two-fold variation in rates of photosynthesis at maximum light levels has been detected across various germplasm panels. Similarly, over two-fold variation in rates of respiration has been found. Respiration leads to a loss of carbon previously fixed by photosynthesis and is negatively correlated with grain yield. Genetic variation has also been shown for the rapidity of response of photosynthesis to light/shade transitions both in canopies and cloud movement.

Mutations in genes that control grain size have been found. The stacking of such alleles has led to larger grains that also have higher levels of protein. Genes important in determining the numbers of grains on I2a spike have also been identified. We have learned that grain “sink” levels are correlated with radiation use efficiency in field studies, for which we have positive genetic variation. Many other ground-breaking discoveries will continue to emerge as the research projects mature and the outputs move through translational stages. Defining the best combinations of the traits and gene variants should lead to significantly higher yield potential. Thus, IWYP believes its strategy remains sound and worthy of continued exploitation.