A new international pre breeding hub will move promising traits into elite European wheat backgrounds and put them directly into commercial breeder trials across Europe.
UK crop science organisation Niab will lead a new international programme aimed at helping promising wheat research reach commercial breeding programmes and, ultimately, farmers’ fields faster.
Funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the three-year project begins in October 2026. It is the first major project supported under the second phase of the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), which brings together research organisations, public funders and private breeding companies to accelerate wheat improvement, according to a press release.
Connecting Research with Breeding Programmes
Led by Dr Phil Howell, crop improvement research lead at Niab, the project will introduce and combine novel traits in elite European winter wheat backgrounds. The resulting advanced pre-breeding lines will be evaluated at breeder trial sites across the UK and Europe.
Niab will work with eight commercial wheat breeding companies and international IWYP hubs at CIMMYT in Mexico, Kansas State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
Howell said discovering genes and traits was only the starting point, with promising research too often failing to translate into gains on farms.
“This project allows us to build a rapid route from promising scientific discoveries to advanced pre-breeding material in adapted, high-yielding variety backgrounds. Crucially, these will then be tested thoroughly across different environments in Europe, working directly with commercial breeders to identify which traits will be most valuable to their breeding programmes. It builds on Niab’s longstanding expertise in wheat genetics and pre-breeding and our experience of working internationally with both research organisations and commercial breeding companies,” said Dr Howell.
Building on Earlier Wheat Research
The project builds on Niab’s European Winter Wheat Hub, established in 2020. That initiative used marker-assisted breeding to transfer novel traits from unadapted sources into elite European varieties, producing hundreds of advanced pre-breeding lines for evaluation by breeding companies.
The new programme will support further investment in pre-breeding, phenotyping and field testing at Niab and breeder sites in the UK, France, Germany and Denmark.
Katrina Hayter, CEO of Niab, said: “Being selected to lead the first major project in IWYP’s second phase is a strong endorsement of the wheat science and translational capability our teams have built over many years, and the standing Niab has with BBSRC and our international partners.
“It is exactly the kind of partnership Niab exists to build: public research and commercial breeders working on a shared goal, so that scientific discovery becomes practical gains for breeders and farmers in one of the world’s most important food crops.”
Sharing Knowledge Across International Hubs
Professor Richard Flavell, chair of the IWYP Scientific and Impact Executive Board, said the partnership’s role was to strengthen global food security by translating advanced wheat research into technologies breeders could use.
“By integrating public, private, and academic expertise, IWYP accelerates the use of valuable genetic diversity in elite wheat breeding programmes worldwide. Niab will serve as the European Hub of IWYP’s translational research, which will stimulate and facilitate sharing of knowledge and technologies with its other Hubs,” said Professor Flavell.
The project, formally titled “IWYP v2.0 – a translational hub for international wheat pre-breeding and trait validation,” will operate as part of a co-ordinated international “Virtual Super Hub” focused on accelerating genetic improvement in wheat.
