Discovery Fellowship for research into new ways to protect wheat crops from rising temperatures

A scientist from the University of Nottingham has been given half a million pounds funding for her research examining novel ways the wheat flower can tolerate rising climate temperatures.

Plant Physiologist, Dr Lorna McAusland from the School of Biosciences has been awarded a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship to develop techniques to uncover crucial characteristics which enable crops to survive high temperatures. In particular, the role non-foliar structures play in contributing to heat tolerance.

While the majority of our understanding about carbon capture comes from the leaves, non-foliar structures, such as the stems, fruits and flowers, offer an exciting, unexplored source of variation for how plants capture carbon in the face of rising global temperatures. The diversity of shapes and responses to heat will provide vital information on how to protect our crops from climate change; in particular wheat.

Wheat is the world’s most grown crop plant, with all grain originating from the flower or ‘spike’. At the top of the canopy, the spike is exposed to the extremes of heat and light. High temperatures - the result of heatwaves brought about by global warming - damage key photosynthetic processes that reduce the duration of spike carbon capture from the air, leading to severe decreases in grain yield.

Through the development of a custom imaging platform, sophisticated growth facilities and utilising

3D computed tomography, Lorna aims to address the lack