Written by Charlotte Cunningham
A team of scientists from Rothamsted Research have bred a type of wheat specifically to improve whisky production. Charlotte Cunningham reports. The group’s lead researcher says this new wheat will reduce the processing problems, higher energy use, and wear on pumps caused by using current wheat varieties. Rothamsted’s Dr Rowan Mitchell said: “At present using wheat grain is a problem for distilleries because it causes sticky residues that mean the whole distillery must be shut down for cleaning. “Our novel wheat is designed to have grain with low levels of soluble dietary fibre and should greatly decrease these problems. Great for making whisky, but the opposite to what’s required by bakers.” He added that the development will also make UK grown wheat more desirable for use in whisky compared to imported maize, which is currently easier to process. World first This new wheat line is one of the first wheat varieties in the world developed using ‘reverse genetics’ – where scientists start with knowledge of what a gene does, rather than screening for the trait in a plant first and then looking for which of its genes are responsible. Their non-GM approach, called TILLING, allowed them to rapidly breed their…
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