Preliminary genes help create salt-tolerant wheat

Two types of genes that have just been discovered from a wheat variant have provided an important step forward in breeding salt-tolerant wheat varieties.

In a recently published booklet on Plant Physiology, researchers described two types of Nax1 and Nax2 genes, which work by expelling salts from parts of the tree: a type discharged from the roots and the rest from the leaves. The discovery of these two types of genes is the subject of an international patent.

CSIRO's Professor Rana Munns, along with a kind of primitive wheat.(Photo: csiro.au)

The team leader Professor Rana Munns of CSIRO's Crop Engineering Department said that "these two genes are derived from a type of primitive wheat, Triticum monococcum, which were accidentally crossed with a type of wheat. Hard 35 years ago and normally not in wheat grown today. "

The scheme started when CSIRO's team used a highly accurate selection method based on recognizing how salt tolerance of plants to realize wheat variations could help cope with salinity. of water is higher. They pay special attention to high-price durum wheat, which is more susceptible to salt than white barley.

Professor Munns added: 'We have tested hundreds of hard wheat grains collected from the winter cereal collection at Tamworth. Australia has thousands of wheat varieties, and it was fortunate to find the variable. If you do, you will have to look at the gene immediately, but it will take years to find it, so knowing how to do science is sometimes based on luck. '

The team took advantage of their knowledge of two types of genes to establish the identification molecule sequence, used in CSIRO's current wheat breeding program. A salt-tolerant variant like white barley tested on fields can be of economic value in three years , even hard wheat is being developed and the program will be opened. wide for white wheat.

Professor Munns says white wheat is relatively resistant to salt, but it needs to be improved further, the main purpose is to create barley-like wheat that can be grown in high salinity soils. More than 6% of the earth's cultivated land is salty, so saline-tolerant crops can help solve problems like farmers' income as well as land from water and wind erosion.

Type of primitive wheat - Triticum monococcum (Photo: linnaeus.nrm.se)

The study is a cooperation project between the Australian Research and Industry Research Organization, the Ministry of Industry 1 New South Wales, the University of Adelaide and the Center for Functional Gene in Australia, with the support of the Group. Grain Development Research (GRDC) and Cooperative Research Center (CRC).

Anh Phuong