This afternoon at the #DeliveringSustainableWheat conference at @johninnescentre.bsky.social we're discussing a strand of the programme that focuses on developing sustainable data frameworks for the wheat community. @dsw-isp.bsky.social

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the @dsw-isp.bsky.social annual meeting today! From tackling wheat diseases to investigating the building blocks of plant growth, the event has been full of engaging discussion. To find out more about Delivering Sustainable Wheat, visit jic.link/DSW

If you are part of the wheat research community and want to share your ideas, please get in touch and fill in this survey here: wheat-tools.jic.ac.uk 🌾

Our Institute Strategic Programmes have already delivered impactful web services for the wheat community: wheatresearch.ac.uk/resources/ JIC Head of Informatics, Dr Burkhard Steuernagel, has opened discussion at the @dsw-isp.bsky.social annual meeting about ways to update, improve and add to them 👇

Sharing new methodologies and knowledge with the community is what this meeting is all about! You can read about Emilie’s method here: dx.doi.org/10.17504/pro...

We’re back at the @dsw-isp.bsky.social annual meeting this afternoon where @emilieknight.bsky.social is presenting a promising protoplast-based method to decipher gene networks in wheat. Protoplasts are living plant, bacterial, or fungal cells that have had their rigid outer cell walls removed.

More than 50% of the UK’s wheat is now vulnerable to infection from the fungal pathogen because of a newly identified strain, prompting an urgent mobilisation of research institutes to protect harvests. Read more: www.jic.ac.uk/press-releas...

PhD student Becca @beccatesta.bsky.social is JIC’s first speaker at @dsw-isp.bsky.social annual meeting, giving a fascinating talk on genetic regulation of wheat senescence. This stage of development informs grain nutrient content, making her research important for agronomy and global health.

Professor Diane Saunders closed today’s second @dsw-isp.bsky.social session about yellow rust and the breakdown of a key resistance gene (Yr15). Yellow rust is a wheat disease that poses a major threat to global wheat production and food security.

Today we're excited to join the Delivering Sustainable Wheat Conference - a @ukri.org cross-institute programme bringing together expertise of 11 organisations and universities - including Earlham Institute, @johninnescentre.bsky.social, @quadraminstitute.bsky.social and @rothamsted.bsky.social.

We are excited to be hosting the Delivering Sustainable Wheat annual meeting at the John Innes Conference Centre today! We’ll be posting about how our scientists are addressing challenges facing global wheat crops, and working with national partners to deliver the @dsw-isp.bsky.social programme 🌾

SS3 in wheat starch granule initiation 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... by Ding et al. @WileyPlantSci #PlantScience @johninnescentre.bsky.social

PRESS RELEASE - Rapid response launched to tackle new yellow rust strains threatening UK wheat Fifty percent of the UK’s wheat is under threat from a newly identified strain of the yellow rust pathogen, due to the breakdown of a key resistance gene, Yr15 www.jic.ac.uk/press-releas... 1/ 🧵 (cont)

Great to see our recent study with @johninnescentre.bsky.social make the cover of January's @theplantcell.bsky.social! 🌟 Well done to Ashleigh Lister, Katie Long, and the whole research team from Earlham Institute, JIC, and @vizgen.bsky.social! Check out the paper here: buff.ly/QN57HXG

We made the front cover of @theplantcell.bsky.social! Huge congratulations to co-first authors @katielong.bsky.social and Ashleigh Lister, corresponding author @cristobaluauy.bsky.social and everyone at JIC, @earlhaminst.bsky.social and @vizgen.bsky.social who collaborated on this exciting work 👏

📢New paper: Our collaborators at @rothamsted.bsky.social have identified transcription factors in wheat and barley that act downstream of the Green Revolution genes to regulate plant height. Read the full paper @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Family of genes that rule growth, grain development in wheat identified www.agriland.ie/farming-news...

Spatial transcriptomics reveals expression gradients in developing wheat inflorescences at cellular resolution (Katie A Long , Ashleigh Lister , Maximillian R W Jones , et al) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience @aspbofficial

PRESS RELEASE - Innovations in spatial imaging could unlock higher wheat yields Researchers at the John Innes Centre and @earlhaminst.bsky.social are pioneering powerful single-cell visualisation techniques that could unlock higher yields of global wheat 🌾 www.jic.ac.uk/press-releas...

Our new preprint is out on bioRxiv! A regulation-compliant infrared heating system for UK field trials 🌾🔥 doi.org/10.64898/202... Here’s what it looked like ↓

💬 "A lot of the methods I used in this paper have previously only applied to mammals, but by pushing the technical capabilities to allow for non-model species we can answer a wider variety of research questions." Innovations in #spatial imaging could unlock higher wheat yields 👉 buff.ly/a5nWTXx 💻🧬

She reflects on the value of collaboration in achieving strategic aims, and how this event is vital in bringing the wheat research community together: www.jic.ac.uk/blog/from-ce... @earlhaminst.bsky.social @quadraminstitute.bsky.social 🌾

BLOG - From cereal killers to high-fibre bread: the importance of networking in the wheat research community Dr Eleri Tudor, Delivering Sustainable Wheat Programme Manager, attended the @dsw-isp.bsky.social Institute Strategic Programme annual meeting @rothamsted.bsky.social earlier this year 👇

Excited for a second #GreenHorizons training session with undergrads on #PlantScience that feeds the world! Today we’ll learn about the new tools that are transforming plant breeding, and what the future could look like for wheat. 🌾 🌱 #STEMCareers #FutureOfFood

We're still buzzing after yesterday’s session with 95 amazing students diving into plant science, food security, and sustainability. Their enthusiasm and questions show that the next generation of scientists is ready to make a difference. 🌾🌱

🌾 Excited for today’s training session with undergraduates exploring food security, wheat research & careers in plant science. #GreenHorizons #PlantScience #FoodSecurity #WheatResearch #Sustainability #STEMCareers #FutureOfFood

Team JIC are having a cracking time in the “Future of Farm and Agriculture” @farmersweeklyuk.bsky.social zone at New Scientist Live @newscientist.com this weekend 🌟🌾 We’re here on Monday too - come along and see stomata down a microscope and our wonderful wheat varieties!! @dsw-isp.bsky.social

“MARTi has its origins in software we developed for really rapid identification of #pathogens in preterm infants, but we’ve since adapted it to use in a wide range of settings...including in agriculture, and biosurveillance..." A powerful new tool for real-time analysis of #nanopore #metagenomics 👇

Super excited to see our bioRxiv paper out! It furthers our understanding of an FHB resistance locus in timopheevii with some DON resistance too!

💬 “It’s operationally very lightweight, you can use it in-field for taxonomic classification on a standard laptop, or undertake larger, complex analysis using HPC.” 💻🧬 Scientists at Earlham Institute introduce MARTi, a new tool for real-time #nanopore #metagenomics. @genomeresearch.bsky.social

High fibre white flour developed at Rothamsted passes the taste test - Genetic differences in wheat varieties have been used to develop lines with naturally higher dietary fibre - and bread fans love it! 🍞👍 @uniofreading.bsky.social Full story 👇 www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/high-fi...

PhD studentship Come help us understand the wheat rhizosphere at the Earlham Institute 🦠 Working at the interface of fungal antagonists & pathogens (@rowenahill.bsky.social @neilhall.bsky.social ), host genetic diversity (Simon Griffiths -JIC) and bacterial community diversity (Jacob Malone -JIC)

With partners @ibotcz.bsky.social Rothamsted has uncovered how a family of genes that regulate plant hormones in wheat fine-tunes the plant’s growth and grain development - could help breeders produce bigger harvests. 🧬🌱 Full story 👇 www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/key-whe...

📃 New research published today in @natcomms.nature.com from the Earlham Institute and @helmholtzmunich.bsky.social presents the first wheat pan-transcriptome - revealing layers of hidden diversity spanning our modern wheat variations. 🧪 ➡️ buff.ly/ZDIRnFW @wheatinitiative.bsky.social @ukri.org

BLOG - Women in wheat event provides training to address gender bias in wheat research This July saw the latest #WomenInWheat event, where 25 early career women researchers attended a JIC training event focused on addressing gender bias in the UK and internationally www.jic.ac.uk/blog/women-i...

DSW Newsletter July 2025 🌱🌾

📢New paper! The fungal pathogen Fusarium uses a specialized protein to weaken plant immune defences & cause head blight - discovery could lead to bio-engineered disease-resistant grains @iubiology.bsky.social @plantdisease.bsky.social Read the full story 👇 www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/fungal-...

We've been in the field this week visiting our Breeder's Toolkit trial sites! Thank you Elsoms Seeds, DSV UK, KWS, RAGT, Syngenta, NPZ UK and Limagrain for hosting us.

I'm excited to share our work investigating transcriptional compensation in polyploid wheat 🌾 It was fun to work on this project led by @philippaborrill.bsky.social and myself, with key contributions from @emilieknight.bsky.social and @simmojsimmo.bsky.social The key take-aways, a 🧵

🌾June 2025 newsletter🌾

Congratulations to Dr @philippaborrill.bsky.social and ‘Breaking the Wall of Epigenetics in Crop Breeding’ for being shortlisted for the Falling Walls Foundation Science Breakthrough of the Year 2025! 🌟 falling-walls.com/breakthroughs

Great week in the field collaborating with Malcolm Hawkesford's team at @rothamsted.bsky.social as part of the @dsw-isp.bsky.social project 🌾 Special thanks to Nicolas Virlet and March Castle for welcoming us and for all the hard work! @lancasterplantbio.bsky.social

Collected 1-meter-deep soil cores for our Delivering Sustainable Wheat @dsw-isp.bsky.social project. The cores will be scanned using X-ray CT for soil structural and root architectural analyses. @uniofnottingham.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

May 2025 newsletter

If you missed the @wheatgenome.bsky.social webinar yesterday with @simongriff.bsky.social "Breeding: Why we need to start over again" watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0kZ...

🔔 Final Countdown! Just days left until Simon Griffiths @johninnescentre.bsky.social webinar on wheat breeding innovation. 💡 Discover why we need to start over and how genomics is rewriting the future of wheat. 🌱 Secure your spot now: tinyurl.com/2k78bmmh

Our wheat researchers @dsw-isp.bsky.social visited the super powerful "microscope" @diamondlightsource.bsky.social to investigate where crucial nutrients like calcium sit within the grain 🔬🌱🍞 Read the full story👇 www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/wheat-r...

💬 "Some #fungi can change their behaviour in different environments, so understanding how a changing climate might affect fungal behaviour – and what role Starships play in this – is vital.” Starships enable new frontier of fungal genome evolution 🚀 🧬 🌱

Expected papers so far span salt tolerance, floral adaptation & cutting-edge phenotyping 🌾📘 Feel free to share with your networks! @tweeticum.bsky.social @wheatinitiative.bsky.social @cristobaluauy.bsky.social @dsw-isp.bsky.social @wheatgenome.bsky.social #JXBspecialissues #PlantScience 🧪 (2/2)

📃 A new study from the Earlham Institute and @rothamsted.bsky.social reveals insights into large mobile #fungal #genome elements - Starships - and how they jump between fungal species and influence their evolution. 🖥️ 🧬 🧪 ➡️ buff.ly/R5SF9j8 @rowenahill.bsky.social #Transposons #PlantScience