Peak Wheat?

August 26th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

The ever-increasing bounty of agriculture has been with us as long as I can remember, but it may have finally hit the dreaded Peak, according to a new study published in CropScience by Robert Graybosch, a geneticist at the University of Nebraska and James Patterson, a geneticist at Oregon State University.

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Genetic improvements have increased wheat yields about 1% each year since the late ’50s. But in 1984, several scientists noticed that the average yield improvement seemed to have slowed, in a sign that genetic gain was plateauing.

Graybosch and Patterson then went back in and made a more detailed study, carefully analyzing the last 50 years of data collected by the Department of Agriculture. They found that ever since the early ’80s, genetic gain has continued to steadily drop. And now it appears to have come to a halt.

About 68 million metric tons gets harvested in the US every year. There’s only two ways to get more. One is to increase the amount of land devoted to growing wheat. The other? Breeding efforts, like making it mature at ideal times, resist fungal infections, and divert more energy into making grain. We seem to have exhausted option two, if these scientists are right.

Several suspects.

1. Faster breeding pathogens, evolving more quickly than plant breeders can fight back

2. Possibly, breeding itself has weakened wheat by reducing the gene pool

Wheat has not been subjected to genetic modification, as have corn and soy. Wheat’s genome is very complex.

Directly altering wheat DNA with genetic modification could fix the problem, but it is not a choice that is popular, says Graybosch. Other options: plant more land, use more water. They don’t sound so great either.

Image: JackyJ2010

Source: ScienceMag

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Tags: peak, wheat

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

http://dailygreenbrief.blogspot.com/ Doc Wheat

You are wrong when you say there is no genetically modified wheat. Several genetically modified varieties have been developed, but none has been commercialized yet. They just haven’t been able create a GM variety that delivers enough value to the farmer to make it commercially viable.

The recently published wheat genome will accelerate both “traditional” wheat breeding and possibly recombinant genetic modification. (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/landmark-in-wheat-research-101709748.html)

Here’s a recent news item about development of GM wheat for India http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-06/monsanto-backed-mahyco-plans-india-s-first-gm-wheat.html
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Thanks for the info.
DougInSpokane

Ms/Mr Dollison, the real risk is a new wheat disease similar to the bane of all wheat diseases: rust ug99. If it takes hold and we can not genetically by pass it, you can pretty much kiss wheat goodbye. I has just started to spread, like the others, from Uganda to the Middle East where it will then jump to Russia, China, Euro, then overseas to affect all of us. This is a massively serious event, ignored by just about all. Imagine if all we have is Rye and Spelt for a grain crop.

http://www.economist.com/node/16481593

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_ug99_fungus/
Alex

Everyone i say this to balks and then rants about how stupid i am: reduce the frickin world population and then 99% of our problems from pollution to energy to world hunger, disease… goes down or goes away. if there weren’t so many people in the world, then maybe there would be plenty of wheat to go ’round. call me insane, call me eccentric call me whatever but you can’t deny that i’m right, unless your one of those people with too many kids…
Kum Dollison

Good Gravy. There must be a billion acres of land lying fallow around the world that could be used to grow wheat. It’s not used because the price of wheat is so low. There’s about $0.04 or $0.05 of wheat in a loaf of bread – depending on the type.

Stick with the Solar, and Wind, kiddos. You’re pretty good on that.