DSW ISP

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-...

It was our last visit to Syngenta’s site at Whittlesford in Cambridgeshire which is due to close at the end of the year. Special thanks to Olga and Duncan, it's been great working with you over the years!

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

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🌾

Science Breakthroughs The Falling Walls Science Summit celebrates the forefront of scientific advancements with breakthrough speakers.

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

YouTube video by International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium Breeding: Why we need to start all over again

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...

Starship discovery reveals new frontiers of fungal genome evolution New insights into large mobile fungal genome elements, called Starships, have revealed more about how they jump between fungal species and influence their evolution.

💬 "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 🚀 🧬 🌱

The image shows different important targeted traits of wheat crop including ROS scavenging, spike diversity, cold/freezing stress, yellowing due to stripe rust infection, seed color diversity, spike mutant of wheat, infes- tation of wheat by cereal leaf beetle, leaf blight, root trait phenotyping and pre-harvest sprouting of wheat spike (courtesy of Reyazul Rouf Mir).

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)

Starship discovery reveals new frontiers of fungal genome evolution The discovery, from scientists at the Earlham Institute and Rothamsted Research, allows researchers to better study how similar species of Pezizomycotina fungus have evolved to adopt radically different lifestyles.

📃 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

GIBBERELLIN 3-OXIDASE genes regulate height and grain size in bread wheat Abstract. In plants, gibberellin (GA) levels are tightly regulated to optimise growth and development. GA 3-oxidases (GA3OX) catalyse a key GA biosynthesis

📢New Paper! Genes regulating wheat growth hormones mapped. The findings could pave the way for new varieties that produce bigger grains and are better suited to the challenges of climate change @jxbotany.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...

Congratulations Isabel!

Congratulations @katielong.bsky.social

Keynote @monogram-uk.bsky.social #monogramuk25 Breeding: why we need to start all over again? By Simon Griffiths

Really enjoying #Monogram2025 so far @ibers.bsky.social Great talk by @chen-ji.bsky.social on her latest work exploring gene expression patterns in wheat grains. So many interesting genes to characterise!

Hard-hitting talk with lots of data about chronic diseases from @ondrejkosik.bsky.social from @rothamsted at #MonogramUK2025 , and how we can combat them through cereal dietary fibre. @monogram-uk.bsky.social @ibers.bsky.social

Very interesting talk from Stephen Pearce of @rothamsted.bsky.social on novel dwarfing genes at #MonogramUK2025. @monogram-uk.bsky.social @ibers.bsky.social

Wonderful talk from @delfidorussen.bsky.social at #Monogram2025 about DNA methylation mutants in wheat. You can read the full MET1-1 mutant characterisation which was just published this week @jxbotany.bsky.social ⬇️

We are at #Monogram @ibers.bsky.social wonderful networking with the wheat and cereal research community. @johninnescentre.bsky.social @dsw-isp.bsky.social

NEWS - Does this breakthrough mark a new epigenetic chapter in crop breeding?

Today is #WorldHealthDay. Did you know that #wheat is an incredibly important crop for human health? 🌾

Read our latest news story about an important epigenetic breakthrough in creating more resilient crops

okt.to/sL9oKr

Partial redundancy buffers deleterious effects of mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1) in polyploid wheat Varying gene dosage through mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1 ) in polyploid wheat generates quantitative changes to CG methylation without the le

I’m very happy to share the published version of our paper on the role of MET1 in wheat 🌾 🧬

It’s been really exciting to discover more about DNA methylation in wheat and it’s huge polyploid genome

doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

Fantastic to welcome so many early-career female researchers from across the UK wheat community to undertake #WomenInWheat leadership training provided by @hfpconsulting.bsky.social at the JIC field station this week! 🌾

@ukri.org @thesainsburylab.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

Less than a week to go🌾 #MonogramUK25, Looking forward
to this exciting programme. This year includes an ERC Skill-building workshop.
www.aber.ac.uk/en/media/dep...