Staff in the Cell and Molecular Sciences Group at The James Hutton Institute have a distinguished track record of research in plant and crop sciences including genetic and genomic analyses and they have contributed to international and national consortia to conduct whole genome sequencing of important crop plants (e.g. barley, potato, raspberry). This knowledge has enabled the identification of genes underlying key traits and their functional validation by different methods. This work has provided the underpinning background knowledge to develop populations and molecular markers that have been deployed in commercial breeding programmes through James Hutton Limited (JHL).

New predictive genomic technologies such as genomic selection and genome wide association studies are now state-of-the-art in plant breeding. The new knowledge of plant genome sequences has allowed populations of plants densely covered with molecular markers to be analysed using computational methods with traits assigned breeding values so that clones can be selected at a very early stage. This allows fast tracking of fewer numbers of candidate clones for field phenotyping and typically decreases the number of field generations by half. Together with new ‘speed breeding’ techniques that accelerate the growth cycle from seed to seed, this has led to a major step change in plant breeding.

The Mylnefield Trust recognises the need to foster skills in contemporary plant breeding and enable a career path for future leaders in genetics and breeding. They will fund three trainee plant breeders to study for a PhD at The James Hutton Institute starting one per year over the next 3 years.

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