PS Seminar Series: Climate-Resilient Wheat Through Phenomics and Physiological Breeding

ABSTRACT
Climate change is quickly reshaping the environments in which wheat is cultivated, challenging global food security through increasing temperatures, heat stress, and unpredictable climatic variability. Improving wheat adaptation under these conditions requires moving beyond conventional yield-based selection toward a deeper understanding of the physiological mechanisms that sustain plant performance under stress.

In this seminar, I will talk about how the integration of physiological breeding and modern wheat phenomics is advancing the development of climate-resilient wheat. I will highlight key physiological traits associated with stress adaptation — including canopy temperature regulation, phenology, transpiration dynamics, and stay-green responses — and how these traits help explain yield stability across contrasting environments. I will also present how emerging phenomics and environmental characterization approaches are enabling the large-scale assessment of complex plant responses under field conditions, providing new opportunities to connect plant function with breeding decisions.

Using examples from collaborative research with universities, CIMMYT, and the Mexican National Institute for Agricultural and Livestock Forestry Research (INIFAP), I will illustrate how integrating physiology, phenotyping, and environmental analysis can improve our understanding of wheat responses to heat stress, including the effects of warm night temperatures. Finally, I will discuss how these approaches are contributing to more predictive and climate-resilient breeding strategies for future wheat improvement.

BIOGRAPHY

Dra. Suzuky Pinto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto Tecnólogico de Sonora (ITSON) in Ciudad Obregón, México, working in the area of crop physiology. Her research focuses on understanding plant responses to climate change, with particular emphasis on heat and drought stress tolerance. She addresses key questions in crop improvement, particularly those related to root system development and nocturnal physiological processes in wheat. Her research is currently supported by the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies from Mexico. It has also been funded by Newton Fund. She has collaborated with researchers from CIMMYT, the Mexican National Institute of agriculture (INIFAP), the Sonoran farmers association (PIEAES), the University of Adelaide, and the University of Nottingham, and has contributed to the training of undergraduate and graduate students. She is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNII) in Mexico.