LSA - Research Group Wheat

We focus our work on central questions of recent wheat research and breeding activities. First, we intensively work on the re-establishment of old wheat species and wheat varieties. Therefore, we investigate the market potential of old wheat species and support the re-cultivation with small breeding programs. One big success story is the re-establishment of spelt wheat (Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta), which is nowadays grown on about 100.000 ha strongly driven by our work. Additionally we have established breeding programs for Emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum), Einkorn (Triticum monococcum ssp. monococcum) and Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) as well as pre-breeding activities for bread wheat (Triticum aestivum ssp. aestivum). In addition, we actually evaluate the potential for buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) breeding in Germany.

Second, we focus on healthy ingredients of wheat for human consumption. Thereby we want to elaborate the natural genetic variation and the potential to increase important ingredients like minerals and vitamins or reduce negative ingredients like cadmium or acrylamide along the cereal supply chain. We are convinced that future wheat supply chain should care beside sustainable agronomy and baking quality also about nutritional value. Recent bestsellers claim that wheat is responsible for a lot of human diseases. In contrast to these books, which are full of hypothesis lacking any scientific proof, we try to elaborate important ingredients in wheat and screen whether old species or varieties can deliver interesting ingredients to our daily uptake. We try also to elaborate the reasons for the non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Third, we work on breeding methodology focusing on the elaboration of optimized breeding schemes for cereals with and without molecular markers. An R package "selectiongain" was developed at the University of Hohenheim with which breeders can easily optimize their breeding schemes. An introduction to this program can be found on Friedrich Longin's youtube channel.