Kansas State University to Lead U.S. Winter Wheat Improvement Project

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture has chosen Kansas State University (KSU) to head a project to improve U.S. winter wheat varieties.

The university received $1 million to kickstart the International Wheat Yield Partnership’s (IWYP’s) Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation Hub, which will evaluate the findings from several IWYP projects that are connected with significantly improved winter wheat yields.

This action will help researchers work to stack desirable traits (what researchers refer to as “trait packages”) such as genetic improvements that result in stronger resistance to pests, diseases, or drought, and to maximize the value of research findings and translate that value into commercially viable products. KSU’s Wheat Genetics Resources Center and Integrated Genomics Facility, and the ARS’s Hard Red Winter Wheat Quality Lab and Hard Winter Wheat Genotyping Lab, among many others, are partners that are making the work of this public-private partnership possible. A second IWYP hub located in Mexico called the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is also leading a parallel project to evaluate research and validate findings on spring wheat. More on this story