Key Takeaways:
- Wild Bioscience is leading a UK consortium to develop and commercialize precision-bred wheat varieties focused on yield and resilience.
- The partnership includes KWS, Dyson Farming, and Newby Partnerships to span trait development through commercial-scale validation.
- The project has secured £1.13 million in funding from Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and Innovate UK.
- Wild Bioscience will integrate proprietary traits into elite germplasm, with field validation conducted under real-world farming conditions.
- The programme is designed to shorten development timelines and improve capital efficiency through integrated collaboration.
Wild Bioscience Leads Precision-Bred Wheat Consortium
Wild Bioscience Ltd has announced the formation of a consortium of UK agricultural organizations aimed at accelerating the development of new precision-bred wheat varieties. The initiative focuses on sustainably increasing yield and improving crop resilience through advanced genetic trait development.
Wild Bioscience, an agricultural biotechnology spinout from the University of Oxford, combines AI-driven discovery with evolutionary biology to generate proprietary crop traits. The company previously announced a soy product partnership targeting growers across the Americas, and stated that the new wheat programme demonstrates the scalability of its platform across crops and geographies.
Integrated Development from Trait to Field
The consortium brings together:
- KWS, the largest supplier of wheat varieties in the UK, responsible for integrating Wild Bioscience’s proprietary traits into leading commercial varieties.
- Dyson Farming, the UK’s largest commercial farming operation, which will deploy the seeds in large-scale production environments to generate real-world performance data.
- Newby Partnerships, providing commercial strategy expertise.
By aligning trait discovery, elite germplasm integration, and commercial-scale cultivation within a single programme, Wild Bioscience aims to accelerate the route to market for precision-bred wheat. Field data generated during commercial trials will feed back into the company’s platform to support faster iteration and risk reduction for future products.
Funding Support and Strategic Backing
The consortium has secured £1.13 million in project funding through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and Innovate UK. The funding is intended to accelerate development activities and support the translation of precision-bred innovation into practical, grower-ready solutions.
Leadership Commentary From Wild Bioscience's Consortium
“By uniting AI-enabled trait discovery, leading seed expertise, and large-scale UK farming networks, we hope to deliver the benefits of precision breeding to growers far faster than working independently,” said Sam Gattis, CTO of Wild Bioscience.
“Dyson Farming Research is thrilled to be part of a partnership that has the potential to reshape the future of UK wheat production,” said Richard Meredith, Head of Research at Dyson Farming. “By helping to translate cutting-edge photosynthesis research into a commercially relevant wheat variety, we’re contributing to advances that could deliver real benefits for growers, the environment, and long-term food security.”
“The real strength of this project is simplicity, as yield increase is a universal requirement across all the supply chain and the major link to increased sustainability,” said Andrew Newby, Managing Director of Newby Partnerships.
“KWS is pleased to be part of this collaboration on enhancing photosynthesis and yield using genome editing in wheat,” said Jacob Lage, Head of Wheat Breeding at KWS. “We strongly believe that a combination of modern germplasm and new breeding technologies will help farmers achieve higher, more reliable yields.”
