In Pakistan, 3,000 new wheat lines begin field testing.

Using a speed breeding facility to speed up early-stage breeding, Pakistan has advanced almost 3,000 newly developed wheat lines into field evaluation.

The wheat lines have been developed since the establishment of the facility in 2022 and are currently being evaluated in the field, according to Dr. Zahid Mahmood, Program Leader of the Wheat Program at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), who spoke to Wealth Pakistan.

He stated that the facility enables scientists to drastically cut down on the amount of time needed for early-stage variety production. “These wheat lines were developed using controlled-environment speed breeding techniques,” he said.

Dr. Zahid clarified that because eight generations must be produced in an open field, traditional breeding techniques require 12 to 15 years to establish a wheat variety. “We can finish a generation in two months and create a new variety in seven to eight years with this controlled environment,” he stated.

According to him, the facility is the first of its sort in South Asia and the first purpose-built wheat speed breeding center in Pakistan. The center offers a completely controlled environment that substitutes years of field-based generation advancement, and it is inspired by ideas employed in space science.

“In open fields, it typically takes almost eight years to complete seven to eight generations,” he stated. “We can accomplish the same thing here in just one to one and a half years.”

The best-performing wheat lines will be put into national trials after two years of field evaluation, which is a necessary step before new wheat types are released, according to Dr. Zahid.

He stated that the effort has already produced noticeable results, pointing out that it would have taken several years to generate about 3,000 wheat lines using traditional methods.

The hospital has also become a regional center for capacity building, according to Dr. Zahid. As the region’s leader in speed breeding, Pakistan has taught 250–300 scientists and postgraduate students both domestically and internationally.

He added that the organization has collaborated closely with Central Asian nations and helped construct the first speed breeding facility in Kazakhstan, demonstrating that “our collaboration extends beyond Pakistan.”

He mentioned that the fast breeding technology was first created in 2018 at the University of Queensland in Australia, where he first learned about it while working on his PhD. Later, with technical assistance from Australian experts, Pakistan modified the system.