Richard Horsnell

Biography

Richard has worked in wheat pre breeding for over 15 years. He played a significant role in producing two Multi-Parent Advanced Generation Inter-Cross (MAGIC) populations which have provided a valuable resource for dissecting trait genetic architecture.

More recently Richard has developed a collection of novel synthetic wheat to assess and exploit genetic diversity from the D genome of hexaploid wheat. NIAB’s synthetic wheat collection captures D genome donors from all three lineages of A.tauschii and is a valuable resource for researchers and wheat breeders. Richard has used these synthetic wheats to generate nearly 10,000 Bc1 F5 pre breeding lines across two elite wheat backgrounds.
Richard has also began working for the IWYP Winter Wheat Hub which is based at NIAB. The purpose of this hub is to provide a translational pipeline supporting European winter wheat improvement. Richard’s role within this project is to produce Near Isogenic Lines containing beneficial traits through crossing and Marker Assisted Selection.