The growing human population and a changing environment have raised significant concern for global food security, with the current improvement rate of several important crops inadequate to meet future demand ¹ . This slow improvement rate is attributed partly to the long generation times of crop plants. Here, we present a method called 'speed breeding', which greatly shortens generation time and accelerates breeding and research programmes. Speed breeding can be used to achieve up to 6 generations per year for spring wheat (Triticum aestivum), durum wheat (T. durum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and pea (Pisum sativum), and 4 generations for canola (Brassica napus), instead of 2-3 under normal glasshouse conditions. We demonstrate that speed breeding in fully enclosed, controlled-environment growth chambers can accelerate plant development for research purposes, including phenotyping of adult plant traits, mutant studies and transformation. The use of supplemental lighting in a glasshouse environment allows rapid generation cycling through single seed descent (SSD) and potential for adaptation to larger-scale crop improvement programs. Cost saving through light-emitting diode (LED) supplemental lighting is also outlined. We envisage great potential for integrating speed breeding with other modern crop breeding technologies, including high-throughput genotyping, genome editing and genomic selection, accelerating the rate of crop improvement.

中文翻译：

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快速育种是加速作物研究和育种的有力工具。


不断增长的人口和不断变化的环境引起了人们对全球粮食安全的极大关注，目前几种重要作物的改良率不足以满足未来的需求¹ 。这种缓慢的改善速度部分归因于农作物的世代时间较长。在这里，我们提出了一种称为“快速育种”的方法，它大大缩短了世代时间并加速了育种和研究计划。通过快速育种，春小麦（Triticum aestivum）、硬粒小麦（T. durum）、大麦（Hordeum vulgare）、鹰嘴豆（Cicer arietinum）和豌豆（Pisum sativum）每年最多可实现 6 代，以及 4 代对于双低油菜籽（甘蓝型油菜），而不是正常温室条件下的 2-3 个。我们证明，在全封闭、受控环境的生长室中快速育种可以加速用于研究目的的植物发育，包括成年植物性状的表型分析、突变体研究和转化。在温室环境中使用补充照明可以通过单粒种子下降（SSD）实现快速发电循环，并有可能适应更大规模的作物改良计划。还概述了通过发光二极管 (LED) 补充照明节省成本。我们设想将快速育种与其他现代作物育种技术（包括高通量基因分型、基因组编辑和基因组选择）相结合的巨大潜力，从而加快作物改良的速度。