Azeem Ahmed Khan

Pakistan has taken a major step toward accelerating the development of improved wheat varieties with the inauguration of a state-of-the-art speed breeding facility, significantly reducing research and development timelines, according to the head of the national wheat programme.

Dr Zahid Mahmood, Program Leader of the Wheat Program at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), told Wealth Pakistan that the new facility enables scientists to develop wheat varieties in nearly half the time required under conventional methods.

“Traditionally, it takes 12 to 15 years to develop a wheat variety because eight generations must be completed in the field,” he said. “With this controlled environment, we can complete a generation in just two months and develop a new variety within seven to eight years.”

He said the facility is the first purpose-built wheat speed breeding centre in Pakistan and the first of its kind in South Asia. Inspired by space science concepts, the centre provides a fully controlled environment that replaces years of field-based generation advancement.

“Normally, completing seven to eight generations takes nearly eight years in open fields,” he explained. “Here, we can achieve the same in just one to one-and-a-half years.”

Dr Zahid said the initiative has already delivered tangible outcomes. Since its launch in 2022, the centre has developed around 3,000 new wheat lines, a process that would otherwise have taken several years.

“These lines are now under field evaluation,” he said. “After two years of testing, the best-performing lines will enter national trials, enabling the release of improved varieties in a much shorter time frame.”

He added that the facility has also emerged as a regional hub for capacity building. Pakistan, as a pioneer of speed breeding in the region, has trained between 250 and 300 scientists and postgraduate students from both within the country and abroad.

“Our collaboration extends beyond Pakistan,” he said. “We have worked closely with Central Asian countries and supported the establishment of the first speed breeding facility in Kazakhstan.”

Dr Zahid noted that the technology was originally developed in 2018 by the University of Queensland, Australia, where he was introduced to the concept during his doctoral research. Pakistan has since adapted the system with technical support from Australian scientists.

“This is a major advancement for wheat research,” he said. “By using cutting-edge technologies, we are able to deliver improved varieties in significantly less time.”

He added that the programme also integrates advanced tools, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, drones, and multispectral sensors, to enhance precision and speed in crop evaluation.

“When breeding material is tested, we use drones and remote sensing technologies for rapid and accurate assessment,” he said. “These tools help reduce evaluation time while improving data quality.”

The facility also serves as a research and training platform for MPhil and PhD scholars, strengthening Pakistan’s scientific and human resource capacity. The project has been developed under a government-funded Public Sector Development Programme.

Credit: INP-WealthPk