Richard Horsnell

Research interests

Richard has worked in Niab’s wheat pre-breeding department since its inception in 2007. 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 is proficient in all aspects of plant breeding and has over 20 years of experience in trial preparation, field assessments, harvesting, glasshouse based crossing, aswell as all aspects of laboratory work from DNA extractions to KASP based SNP genoytping.

Richard is currently working on a range of wheat focused projects looking into areas such as wheat root microbiome interactions, wheat epidermal cell formation and compatibility of direct hexaploid x diploid hybridisation. Richard often works with leading industrial partners and has built excellent working relationships with many UK cereal producers.

Full publication list available at ORCID