NEWp - Nutrient Efficient Wheat partnership
Project overview
Participants
More related research
Short summary
NEWp was a collaborative research project with focus on early root growth, root to shoot ratio and leaf nitrogen content during grain filling of spring wheat.
Spring wheat is frequently grown in Sweden to produce bread-making flour, for which e.g. high protein content (and thus high nitrogen content) is important. Especially the short growing seasons under Swedish conditions require spring wheat varieties with improved nutrient use efficiency early in the growing season.
The overall aims were to (i) identify phenotypic traits that are important for improving spring wheat yield and nutrient use under the cultivating conditions in Swedish agriculture; (ii) identify potential genetic resources for pre-breeding of more nutrient efficient spring wheat lines; and (iii) select parental lines for development of a mapping population in order to identify genetic markers useful for marker-assisted breeding.
To increase nitrogen content in spring wheat
Our working hypothesis was that spring wheat varieties with enhanced early root growth and greater root allocation early in the growing season develop higher leaf nitrogen (N) content during grain filling and are more nutrient efficient under the conditions in Sweden.
To address this hypothesis, this project combined screening of relevant phenotypic traits in a number of spring wheat genotypes under controlled conditions, and the evaluation of a sub-set of lines with contrasting characteristics under field conditions (incl. genotype x environment interaction, GxE).
A collaboration with the industry
This project brought together a commercial breeding company (Lantmännen Lantbruk), which can apply the project results in their ongoing wheat breeding program; expertise in crop science and breeding (SLU), and plant phenotyping (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany).
Project outcomes
PhD Theses
Lorena de Jesús Guardia Velarde (2025) Towards sustainable spring wheat cultivation: enhancing nitrogen use efficiency through strategic breeding. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae 2025:6
Hui Liu (2021) Associations among early-season root and shoot traits, nutrient use efficiency and grain yield of spring wheat. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae 2021:66.
Publications
Guardia-Velarde L, Cope JE, Metzler H, Westerbergh A, Weih M (2025) Same with less: a method to reduce destructive sampling to estimate nitrogen use efficiency components using allometric relationships in spring wheat (Triticum aestivum). Functional Plant Biology 52:FP24201.
Frantová N, Guardia-Velarde L, Jovanović I, Weih M (2025) Genotype adaptive patterns in spring wheat reveal drought-induced differentiation in root morphology. Frontiers in Plant Science 16:1534211.
Guardia-Velarde L, Liu H, Cope JE, Westerbergh A, Weih M (2023) Differential breeding targets in wheat influence non-target traits related to grain quality, but not crop nitrogen requirement. Frontiers in Agronomy 5.
Liu H, Colombi T, Jäck O, Westerbergh A, and Weih M (2022) Linking wheat nitrogen use to root traits: Shallow and thin embryonic roots enhance uptake but reduce conversion efficiency of nitrogen. Field Crops Research 285: 108603.
Liu H, Colombi T, Jäck O, Keller T, Weih M (2022) Effects of soil compaction on grain yield of wheat depend on weather conditions. Science of The Total Environment 807: 150763.
Weih M, Liu H, Colombi T, Keller T, Jäck O, Vallenback P, Westerbergh A (2021) Evidence for magnesium–phosphorus synergism and co-limitation of grain yield in wheat agriculture. Scientific Reports 11: 9012.
Liu H, Fiorani F, Jäck O, Colombi T, Nagel KA, Weih M (2021) Shoot and Root Traits Underlying Genotypic Variation in Early Vigor and Nutrient Accumulation in Spring Wheat Grown in High-Latitude Light Conditions. Plants 10: 174.