A new future for an old crop

Mapping the barley genome.
As published in Nature

Barley is at the heart of Australia’s agriculture and is the world’s fourth most important cereal crop. First cultivated over 15,000 years ago, we now produce around seven million tonnes per year. This equates to $1.3 billion in exports annually and underpins our $5 billion beer industry.

Today, the crop faces environmental challenges such as rising temperatures, salinity, drought, pests and disease which threaten its production. To respond effectively, an in-depth understanding of barley is needed. Recently, researchers at the University of Adelaide’s Waite campus have made a major breakthrough by mapping the barley genome as part of an international project.

The project, conducted by the International Barley Sequencing Consortium (IBSC), has attracted global attention – including publication in the prestigious journal Nature. Professor Peter Langridge, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG), leader of the Australian research team and a senior author of the Nature paper, foresees major benefits for industry.

"This new analysis of all the genes in the barley genome is a major step forward for agricultural science and industry,” says Professor Langridge.

“This will greatly accelerate the work in Australia and elsewhere to improve the quality of barley, enhance its disease and pest resistance and, most importantly, support efforts to improve the tolerance of barley to environmental stresses such as heat and drought.”

With the barley genome almost twice the size of the human genome, the project was a huge undertaking. The genome also contains a large proportion of closely related sequences, making it difficult to piece together. However despite these challenges, the team has revealed the order and structure of most of the 32,000 genes - including regions that carry genes important to providing resistance to disease. This means scientists now have the best possible understanding of the crop’s immune system. In addition, they have provided a detailed analysis of where and when genes are switched on in different tissues and at different stages of development.

Excitingly, the knowledge gained from the process extends beyond barley to its close relations wheat and rye.

“Because barley is very closely related to wheat, these results from barley will have a major impact on wheat research. Wheat is Australia’s most important crop, and improvements in wheat production globally will be a key to ensuring global food security,” Professor Langridge explains.

The project is a great example of how international collaboration can lead to major research impact. In Australia, the research team was a joint effort between the ACPFG, the University of Adelaide and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls.