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<\/a><\/p>\nProject leader Dr. Millicent Smith at the University of Queensland (UQ) tells Food Ingredients First that while the work has not investigated grain composition or processing performance, heat-resilient genetics could ultimately support more reliable chickpea supplies during hot growing seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeat tolerance is a complex trait. It involves many genes and responses happening at different stages of the plant\u2019s life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOmics technologies let us look underneath the trait and understand what\u2019s actually going on. But most studies so far have used only one or two data types on a handful of lines, so we wanted to set out a realistic, staged way to use them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omics roadmap for chickpea breeding<\/p>\n
Omics technologies<\/a> analyze different layers of a plant\u2019s biology \u2014 including genes, gene activity, proteins, and metabolites \u2014 to form a more complete picture of how it responds to stresses, such as heat.<\/p>\n Previous chickpea studies have generally used only one or two omics datasets, small numbers of genotypes, and individual tissues, limiting their applicability to larger breeding populations, the authors note. They also point to cost, scalability, and data integration as key barriers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis paper is a roadmap rather than a new variety. Developing and releasing a chickpea variety takes many years, and the tools we\u2019re describing are about shortening that process and making it more targeted,\u201d explains Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the near term, the immediate value is identifying heat-tolerant material that can be used by breeders. The payoff for supply chains comes later, as those genetics make their way into commercial varieties.\u201d<\/p>\n Building heat-resilient chickpea supply<\/p>\n For food and ingredient manufacturers, Smith says the most immediate potential benefit is crop availability rather than changes to ingredient functionality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most direct benefit for manufacturers is likely to be a more reliable supply from Australian growers in hot seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n The scale of potential supply volatility is visible in Australia\u2019s latest crop outlook. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences forecasts chickpea production to fall 52%<\/a> to just over one million metric tons in 2026\u201327, citing significant cuts to planted area and lower expected yields in northern New South Wales and Queensland.<\/p>\n Smith stresses that the UQ project cannot yet draw conclusions about whether heat adaptation would result in more consistent protein, starch, flavor, or color.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t measured grain composition yet in this project, but we do know from other studies that heat can impact protein, starch, flavor, and color. Also, we know that heat during flowering and grain fill causes pod loss and poorer grain filling, which can mean smaller grain and lower yields,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Smith adds that at this stage, the team has also not assessed processing performance, including milling, cooking, or protein extraction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Industry moves upstream to climate-proof crops<\/p>\n UQ\u2019s chickpea focus reflects a wider push to address climate-related supply risks at the crop level.<\/p>\n Recent efforts include AI-driven<\/a> and gene-edited climate-resilient corn, drought-tolerant rice<\/a> genetics, and Nestl\u00e9\u2019s breeding of robusta coffee<\/a> varieties for yield and cup quality. Research has also shown that climate stress can affect milk output<\/a> and lead to declines in milk production, fat, and protein levels.<\/p>\n UQ\u2019s omics roadmap positions chickpea breeding within that shift toward more climate-resilient crops.<\/p>\n \u201cBreeding always involves balancing traits, and grain quality is assessed as part of developing any new variety. If we find useful heat-tolerance traits, the next step is making sure they can be combined with the yield and quality that growers and markets expect,\u201d Smith concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists in Australia are mapping a staged \u201comics\u201d approach to accelerate breeding for heat-adapted chickpeas as rising temperatures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[313216,313215,111,139,69,6007,147],"class_list":["post-638909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-chickpea-breeding","tag-climate-resilient-chickpeas","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-omics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More resilient chickpea genetics may strengthen future ingredient supply.The research, published<\/a> in Food and Energy Security, examines genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, phenomics, and enviromics. It proposes how these tools could be progressively incorporated into chickpea breeding.<\/p>\n
PhD candidate Callum Jamie prepares a drone at a chickpea trial in Gatton, Australia (Image credit: Megan Pope, UQ).\u201cWhether that also means more consistent composition is a good question, and it\u2019s one that would need further research.\u201d<\/p>\n