Look out for multi-stemmed wheat!

[Michael Bell]

What has been the big wheat-breeding success of recent years? It has
been short-stemmed wheat. That is because if you have a good, heavy,
head of wheat it tends to bend over and get spoiled and the way to
stop that happening is for the stem to be short.

That seems paradoxical. A smaller plant to yield more!? Is there any
way out of this fix?

It already exists in maize. Maize produces heads all the way up its
stem, so it is not hemmed in by the paradox I describe above. It is a
defining feature of grasses that they have only one seed-head and that
is at the top of the stem. But maize is a grass and it has multiple
heads up its main stem and there are a few others that do the same. So
might a multi-stemmed wheat be found? And maybe in your field! Look
out for such, as the start of a new breed it would be worth a huge
amount of money.

Michael Bell

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