Award details

Developing enhanced breeding methodologies for oats for human health and nutrition

Reference	BB/M001237/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Derek Stewart
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Heriot-Watt University
Department	Sch of Energy, Geosci, Infrast & Society
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	130,483
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	30/11/2014
End date	29/11/2019
Duration	60 months

Abstract

The demand for high quality food grade oats is increasing annually, driven by its proven health benefits and by product development by the milling and cereals industries. Despite an expanding market, the oat crop is facing increasing competition from other arable crops and that is impacting on the UK oat area grown. This project will apply the latest genetic tools and resources, including genomic selection, to improve key traits that will increase the production and utilisation of oats, and to enhance grain yield, quality and composition. These are increasingly important traits for the UK oat milling industry to fully exploit the nutritional characteristics of the oat grain and key economic drivers for product development. Optimal strategies for high throughput phenotyping and genotyping will be developed. We will establish an efficient high throughput genotyping platform for use across the breeding programme. The advantages of genomic selection over conventional breeding approaches for defined traits will be determined and practical limits established for the use of GS on a wider scale. It will use a range of unique genetic material to dissect the genetic and environmental factors contributing to yield variation and use that information in an innovative oat breeding programme. Breeding programme populations will be used to extend the range of available marker-trait assays to improve selection efficiency in early generations and ensure uniformity in late generations. Phenotyping of key traits concerned with yield, milling quality and with human health and nutrition will be conducted and the impact of changing grain quality characters (beta-glucan or starch content/type) determined. GS results will be validated and gain compared with conventional and MAS approaches on the same populations. This will dramatically increase the efficiency of breeding new varieties and identify regions of the genome associated with key traits through detailed stakeholder discussions.

Summary

The central objective of this proposal is to apply state of the art high throughput breeding and phenotyping approaches to the genetic improvement of oats, focusing on yield, and grain and milling quality, key targets for the economic sustainability of the crop and for the milling industry. The project addresses some of the major challenges facing UK agriculture in terms of the sustainable production of safe and nutritous food. The overall aim of this LINK project is to incorporate high throughput approaches to the IBERS oat breeding programme, to develop strategies to improve yield and other targets ranked as priorities by our industrial partners which are currently difficult or impossible to select for at early stages of breeding cycles. Marker assisted selection (MAS) represents one route to achieve this. It has been successful for introgression of major traits controlled by one or a few genes of large effect, but is difficult with more complex traits governed by many genes, each with a small effect. MAS is used in the IBERS oat breeding programme, largely based on predictions derived from a few markers linked to large effect quantitative trait loci (QTL). Association mapping (AM) will be used to identify further marker-trait associations enabling rapid selection or introgression within the breeding programme. In this project, genomic selection (GS) will be applied to a range of traits, and selections will be validated by comparison with breeder and conventional marker assisted (MAS) selections. Increasingly complex models will be developed in the course of the programme, and an accelerated breeding cycle driven by GS and MAS will be initiated. Traits which may predict yield will be identified by detailed phenomic and field trial analysis of a model winter oat population and an association genetics panel of advanced breeding lines. Metabolic profiling and micro-scale analytical methods will be used to develop further predictive screens. Chip-based high throughput genotyping will be used to predict breeding values; genotype and phenotype data will be incorporated into a pedigree database to further facilitate 'intelligent' breeding design. The existing Illumina 6K iSelect bead assay will be expanded to include SNPs identified from UK winter and European germplasm which have significantly different genetic bases from the bulk of varieties used to develop the initial assay set. Genotyping by Sequencing will become the main platform by the end of the project to take advantage of expected sequence throughput improvements. This project proposal addresses sustainable agricultural production at the interface of two BBSRC strategic priority areas: crop science and healthy and safe food. It is of high strategic relevance, specifically in enhancing crop productivity and quality, enhanced nutritional composition, increasing sustainability of crop production and understanding and exploiting genomics and the genetic diversity in plants (crop science). It will also investigate the potential of novel nutrient supplies from plants (healthy and safe food). This proposal is being submitted through the BBSRC stand-alone LINK scheme. The project will benefit from the involvement of the major oat variety development company in the UK (Senova) and the British Oat and Barley Millers Association (BOBMA) representing the major oat milling companies within the UK such as PepsiCo/Quaker, Morning Foods, European Oat Millers, Grampian Oats, Hogarths and SpeediCook. Involvement of industrial partners will allow for identification and review of key targets and delivery of the outcomes of this project alongside the academic partners.

Impact Summary

The major beneficiaries of this research will be: Plant breeding community: Information on the application of genomic selection in an oat breeding programme will be of value to other breeders of oats and other cereal crops. Development of high throughput screens for key traits associated with milling quality, grain composition and yield that can be used at the early stages of the breeding programme necessitating lower seed quanities will enhance selection ofr yield and quality and wil be of direct benefit to genomic selection approaches but more generally would be beneficial to other breeding programmes. Arable sector: The project will have a significant economic and environmental benefit on the arable sector. Oats are recognised as a low input cereal crop, that can be grown in arable rotations across the UK. It is an excellent break crop and therefore has a major role in sustainable arable rotations. Application of genomic selection and high throughput phenotyping to the breeding of improved oat varieties with greater yield and grain and milling quality that meets the needs of end-users and the oat value-chains will improve the economics of growing the crop and its value to the arable sector. This will ensure that oats remain a competitive crop for arable production and that the benefit of growing oats in arable rotations is realised. Milling industry:Increasing awareness of the health benefits of eating oats, largely due to the beta-glucan content of the grain but also to other grain compositinal characteristics, is increasing the demand for oats and oat based products at a time when the oat crop is increasingly challenged by competition from other cereals. using GS approaches to increase the yield of new oat varieties will increase the financial return of growing oats and will help to ensure that the milling industry has a greater security of supply. The focus on grain quality and composition will also ensure that new varieties have the essential grain quality characteristics that ensure the economic efficiency of the mills and cost benefit. The milling industry will also benefit from the focus on grain composition which will enhance the potential of using oats for different end-uses. Society: Direct benefit will be gained from ensuring the supply of a cereal with recognised health benefits. Enhanced yield and quality of oat varieties will improve the economics of growing oat crops and so ensure that oats, as alow input cereal remain a part of sustainable arable rotations, increasing cropping diversity.

Committee	Research Committee B (Plants, microbes, food & sustainability)
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	LINK: Responsive Mode [2010-2015]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

Associated awards:

BB/M000869/1 Developing enhanced breeding methodologies for oats for human health and nutrition

BB/M000893/1 Developing enhanced breeding methodologies for oats for human health and nutrition

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