Improving wheat for nutrition and processing

Wheat is the most widely grown food crop in the world being consumed after processing into a range of products. Although the major emphasis in the past has been on processing quality, there is increasing interest in the use of wheat to delivery nutritional benefits. We are therefore using new approaches to determine the molecular basis for the processing properties and nutritional quality of wheat, combining transcriptomic analysis of gene expression with the identification and exploitation of variation in natural and mutant populations. The results of these studies should provide breeders with sources of variation and tools to improve grain quality for processing and health