Berlin
May 13, 2026
Physiology, modern plant breeding and the challenges posed by climate change play a key role in ensuring stable yields for the world’s most important crop.
Wheat is one of the world’s most important crops and is therefore crucial to food security. A study recently published by researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin (HU) in *Nature Communications* provides new insights into the biological mechanisms that determine wheat yield. The researchers were able to demonstrate that high yields do not depend on individual traits. The yield of crops such as wheat is the result of complex interactions between genetic traits, environmental factors and agricultural management. The study shows that these processes are not static, but that plants can flexibly adapt their physiological strategies to different environmental conditions – a crucial advantage in the face of increasing climate fluctuations.
The publication, led by Tsu-Wei Chen, Professor of Intensive Plant Food Systems at the Faculty of Life Sciences at HU, brings together three key perspectives – the physiology of crops, modern plant breeding and the challenges of climate change – and demonstrates how their interplay is crucial for future yield stability. It thus becomes clear that the so-called ‘source-sink dynamics’—that is, the finely tuned relationship between the production of assimilates (carbohydrates) through photosynthesis (source) and their storage in the grains (sink)—plays a key role in yield formation and is significantly influenced by plant breeding and environmental conditions.
Long-term plant breeding improves plants’ ability to adapt to climate change
Chen’s team collected and analysed extensive datasets on historical wheat breeding and examined both source-related traits, such as photosynthetic performance, and sink-related traits, such as grain development. In doing so, they were able to demonstrate that advances in breeding are not solely attributable to individual traits, but to a finely tuned network of physiological processes. The new analysis builds on an earlier study by the same research group, published in Nature Plants in 2023 (Sabir et al., 2023, Nature Plants), and confirms an unexpected finding from an investigation of plant breeding between 1960 and 2010: Long-term plant breeding appears to have inadvertently improved sensitivity to elevated temperatures in the context of climate change – particularly during early stages of development – and thus also enhances the plants’ adaptability.
The findings have far-reaching implications for agriculture: a better understanding of the dynamic interaction between sources and sinks could enable future breeding programmes to be more specifically geared towards stable and high yields – even under stressful conditions such as drought or temperature fluctuations.
Overall, the study highlights the need for an integrated approach in plant research that considers genetic, physiological and agronomic factors together. This could make a decisive contribution to global food security.
Participating institutions
- Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU)
- Julius Kühn Institute, University of Bonn
Publication
Plasticity of source-sink dynamics contributes to wheat yield stability
Tien-Cheng Wang, Anna Moritz, Mahmoud Mabrouk, Emilio Villar Alegría, Burak Arinalp, Eliyeh Ganji, Lukas Förter, Benjamin Wittkop, Eva Herzog, Rod J. Snowdon, Andreas Stahl & Tsu-Wei Chen. 2026. Plasticity of source-sink dynamics contributes to wheat yield stability. Nature Communications.
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