Wheat is Australia’s leading cereal crop and a major contributor to the national economy, with $10.1 billion in farm gate value in 2024 to 2025. However, rising temperatures and more frequent and prolonged heatwaves pose a growing threat to wheat production, with climate change potentially causing significant yield losses across Australia.
Researchers across Australia and internationally are working to develop wheat varieties that can better tolerate higher temperatures. As part of this effort, Metabolomics Australia at the University of Western Australia is using advanced metabolomics to investigate the biological mechanisms that enable some wheat varieties to withstand heat stress.
The facility is using targeted gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to profile polar metabolites in diverse wheat lines. These data are being combined with detailed measurements of photosynthesis, respiration, stomatal conductance, hyperspectral traits and yield collected across three growing seasons and four sites in Western Australia and New South Wales.
The project has generated a unique dataset from 200 diverse wheat lines and identified metabolic features and candidate biomarkers associated with heat tolerance.
The next stage will validate these findings and determine which wheat lines could be most valuable for breeding programs, supporting the development of more climate resilient wheat and helping protect Australia’s future food production.