We are 11 people ¿researchers, technical staff, administrative staff and trainee research staff¿ working in the fields of Improvements to Plant Genetics and Food Technology. Our staff are members of the Plant Biotechnology/Biology, Chemistry and Food Technology Departments at the Higher Technical School of Engineering for Agronomy, Food and Biosystems, and the Centre for Biotechnology and Plant Genomics. We are also members of the Food and Health cluster at the Moncloa IEC. The Research Group belongs to the "Performance and Quality Physiology to Improve Cereals" (FiRCMe) Network of Excellence, funded by the Ministry of the Economy and Competition, and the International WHEAT INITIATIVE Network, being a part of the scientific committee in the Expert Working Group for "Improving Wheat Quality for Processing and Health".
Site card
Genetic improvement to plants
MGP
Structure: Research Groups
Email: Áreas: Bioeconomy, Biotechnology and Food Systems
ODS: Zero Hunger
The group's work focusses on genetic improvement to cereals in order to improve functional and nutritional quality and on improvements for sustainable agriculture. We are also interested in researching the genetic variability of germplasm in grasses, as a starting point for developing our new plant varieties.
We are doing this work using classic tools as well as molecular and genome approaches, within the framework of the following lines of research:
- Genetic improvement to the quality of durum wheat and common wheat
- Improvement to cereals for sustainable agriculture
- Genetic variability of germplasm in grasses
- Brachypodium Distachyon
- End-use quality in cereals
- Genetic improvement of bread and durum wheat quality
- Genetic variability of the germplasm of grasses
- Genomic-assited breeding
- Location and chromosomal mapping of endosperm proteins in triticeae
Within the framework of the latest Spanish R&D projects, we have carried out genetic and genome characterisation and work on the functional quality of wide collections of local Spanish varieties of bread wheat and seed wheat. The interest in this kind of material, as a source of genetic variability, is growing, particularly in relation to adapting to a low-input agriculture, and direct cultivation in ecological management systems and making traditional bread products.
We are a member of the AGRISOST (www.agrisost.org/) consortium, funded by the Madrid Community. It is expected that the results will have a direct impact on improving wheat, making it possible to use new strategies to obtain improved varieties under sustainable environmental conditions. On this subject, we are also in the regional Operational Group, OzoCAM (Ozone and plant pathogenicity in the Madrid Community), coordinated by CIEMAT.
With the Next generation variety testing for improved cropping on European farmland project (InnoVar; H2020 Framework Programme. Innovations in Plant Variety Testing, 2019-2023) we are seeking to optimise the protocols for registering varieties in the EU.
