{"id":431936,"date":"2025-09-17T19:57:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/431936\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T19:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:57:12","slug":"gene-editing-leads-to-drought-resilient-wheat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/431936\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene editing leads to drought-resilient wheat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/paherald.sk.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DA-A24-baseimage343.jpg\" data-caption=\"Shaynee Modien\/Local Journalism Initiative Reporter\/The Shaunavon Standard&#010;Recent developments in research aim to improve wheat during times of drought. \" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"1044\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DA-A24-baseimage343-696x1044.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"DA-A24-baseimage(343)\"\/><\/a>Shaynee Modien\/Local Journalism Initiative Reporter\/The Shaunavon Standard<br \/>\nRecent developments in research aim to improve wheat during times of drought. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Shaynee Modien<br \/>Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><br \/>The Shaunavon Standard<\/p>\n<p>Recent developments in research aim to improve wheat during times of drought. Due to Canada\u2019s changing climate and market needs, scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have developed a more drought-resilient wheat.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. John Laurie and his team at the Lethbridge-based AAFC are leading the way in researching newly developed genes affecting drought tolerance. The scientists have been working with circadian clock genes that regulates plant growth and response to environment and have created genetic variety at these genes.<\/p>\n<p>While the study of genes in agriculture has been ongoing for decades, Dr. Laurie\u2019s team has recently been focusing on circadian clock genes since these genes have been important for crop domestication, including for wheat.<\/p>\n<p>By taking lessons from natural genetic variation, the team aimed to tweak a particular wheat circadian clock gene. This \u201cslight tweak\u201d was accomplished, and according to Dr. Laurie, the team has accelerated a natural process that has resulted in improved drought-tolerance.<\/p>\n<p>Numerous tests have been conducted since the discovery, and the results have consistently shown that this specific mutation significantly improves drought tolerance. Dr. Laurie notes that \u201cediting genes to improve drought tolerance\u201d is a viable approach.<\/p>\n<p>The researcher emphasizes that they \u201cknow exactly which gene we\u2019ve changed\u201d that can help make wheat crops more resilient. Drought tolerance is known to involve many genes, making it a challenging trait for plant breeders to incorporate into elite lines. As Dr. Laurie mentions, answering questions like \u201cWhy did one small change in a single gene make the plant drought-resilient?\u201d is the focus of follow-up research and continued work towards further crop improvements.<\/p>\n<p>-Advertisement-<a class=\"gofollow\" data-track=\"MzIsMCw2MA==\" href=\"https:\/\/paherald.sk.ca\/product-category\/subscription\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Journalists-OnlineLB.jpg\"\/><\/a>        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaynee Modien\/Local Journalism Initiative Reporter\/The Shaunavon Standard Recent developments in research aim to improve wheat during times of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-431936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115221407365809921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}