Wheat pre-breeding at NIAB: progress to trait dissection- Alison Bentley
Date
30 July 2018, Monday
Time and Venues
| Venues | Local Time | Time Zone |
| Armidale – B55-FG-R00-Small | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Brisbane St Lucia QBP – Level 3 South telepresence room (3.323) | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Canberra Black Mountain – Discovery Lecture Theatre; Crace – Bld44- Meeting Room 3 | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Narrabri Myall Vale – Conference Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Perth Floreat – B1b Boardroom | 10:30 am | AWST |
| Hobart Sandy Bay – River View Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Toowoomba – Meeting Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Waite (SA): B101-FG-R00-BoardWICWest (alternative is SmallWICWest) | 12:00 pm | ACST |
| Werribee (Melbourne) – Peacock Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
Speaker
Dr Alison Bentley, Director of Genetics and Breeding, NIAB, UK.
Synopsis
Targeted to translation of fundamental plant sciences into application for UK breeding, the NIAB (National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge) wheat pre-breeding programme began in 2007. The initial 10 years focussed on the generation of a portfolio of genetic resources ranging from precise genetic stocks and bi-parental populations through to more complex germplasm including two multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) populations and re-synthesised wheat incorporating untapped genetic diversity. The process of characterising and exploiting these resources is now focussed on the dissection of key agronomic traits including flowering time, nitrogen response and yield. NIAB’s complementary functional genomics capability (genetic engineering, gene-editing) runs in parallel to this, providing a platform for developing detailed understanding of genetic mechanisms. This talk will give an overview of the NIAB wheat pre-breeding resources developed to date and progress towards exploitation.
About the speaker
Dr Alison Bentley is Director of Genetics and Breeding at NIAB and leads a 40-strong team of scientists working across a range of applied crop science project areas. Alison studied Agricultural Science at The University of Sydney, Australia where she also completed a PhD characterising the genetic structure of crown rot populations associated with Australian wheat production. Following her PhD Alison moved to NIAB to take up a position in the wheat pre-breeding team with a specific emphasis on characterising the control of flowering time, a key adaptive trait. Alison leads the exploitation of novel ancestral genetic diversity for wheat improvement via the BBSRC funded cross-institute Designing Future Wheat Institute Strategic Programme and is involved in a wide-range of crop pre-breeding projects in the UK and internationally. She has a strong interest in the genetic control of complex traits and in the application of genomics towards the breeding of high yielding, climate resilient cereals. She is Chair of the UK MonoGram small grain and grasses community (www.monogram.ac.uk).
This is a public seminar.
Open-access to The CSIRO Discovery Theatre @ Black Mountain