Investment

Australia has warmed, on average, by 1.47 ± 0.24 °C since national records began in 1910 and this trend will continue. To mitigate crop losses and establish sustainable wheat production, GRDC is investing to identify target biochemical processes that can be used to develop novel heat-tolerant germplasm and improve selection accuracy in breeding programs. Flavonoids are an important component of the antioxidant defence system deployed by plants, but to date there has been no attempt to exploit this in breeding for heat tolerance because: 1) further evidence is required on its effectiveness as a target trait and 2) there is a lack of high throughput, reliable and cost-effective methodology for screening in commercial breeding programs. This research will investigate the correlation of epidermal flavonoids with heat-stress tolerance in wheat growing in the field and the possibility of predicting epidermal flavonoids using non-destructive measurements made with hand-held and UAV-mounted optical sensors.