Allrounder: Dissecting the genetic basis of natural variation in root and shoot architecture as basis for breeding climate-resilient barley

Genes from crop wild relatives can help plant breeding for more climate-resilient crops. The Allrounder project focuses on identifying genes in wild barley that improve performance and resilience under unpredictable droughts. We test the hypothesis that plasticity in root architecture contributes to genotypic robustness under varying water availability.

Current rapid climate change comes with a need to make our crops more resilient against drought. To enable this, identification of new alleles, genes and genetic resources is crucial.

In this project, we will identify genes for drought resilience in a diversity panel of wild barley and landraces through detailed evaluation of the root and shoot characteristics under drought stress. We aim to learn from nature and identify genes that lead to different root and shoot characteristics to help barley cope with unpredictable droughts.

Overall, this research contributes to improving plant performance under suboptimal conditions.

We carry out this PhD project in collaboration with the Laboratories of Cell Biology and Molecular Biology from Wageningen University.