Precis steve hoad

Working towards cereal varieties with sustainability traits Steve Hoad, cereals specialist at SAC, used a Farmers Club Charitable Trust bursary to study how new varieties could be evaluated for sustainable cereal production in Europe.

Here is a précis of his report.

Agriculture across the world faces the challenge of increasing crop production to feed a growing population, whilst at the same time sustain the environment and natural resources.

The premise behind my study award from the Farmers Club Charitable Trust was that plant breeders are the key players in meeting this challenge – not only in improving yield and food supply, but also for delivering new varieties with wider social and environmental benefits.

This award enabled me to travel to Germany and France to meet cereal breeders from Saaten Union: an alliance of seven plant breeders, with its headquarters in Hannover. The Saaten Union group has a wide range of trial locations across Europe: with more than 20 breeding stations and over 100 testing sites in and outside Germany; including France, Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the UK. This pan-European approach to plant breeding helped me to frame the study programme with the inclusion of big issues such as crop adaptation to climate change and the need to improve resource use efficiency. The idea that cereal varieties could have value far beyond current targets for wide-ecological adaptation came from a long standing view that new varieties (or crops) could be valued for much broader sustainability criteria to deliver multiple public goods.

My tour started at the Agrotechnica Fair in Hannover. A meeting at the Saaten Union stand set the scene for what was to follow – an opportunity to see at first-hand how breeders approached their work and how this related to sustainable farming. Prior to meetings, breeders were sent a series questions about their work and the challenges being faced by agriculture. This included political drivers such as responding to targets on climate change and the desire to reduce environmental impacts of farming. Further questions prompted debate about public-good evaluation of new varieties.

The success of the trip can be put down to the enthusiasm of the breeders who explained their different approaches, and the value of the different selection environments they used, to meet their own vision for future cereal varieties.

From Hannover, I headed south-west to an area where Lower Saxony meets Saxony-Anhalt – the old west-east border – to visit research stations at Söllingen and Böhnshausen. The latter in the shadow of the Harz mountains. Although only 40 km apart these locations provide a rich diversity of selection environments for the breeding of wheat and other crops such as sugar beet.

1

Next it was into Bavaria, where I visited another breeding station at Irlbach, north of Munich.

This time the focus was on spring and winter barley. Here the climate is more continental with the added influence of the Alpine föhn wind – known locally as the “hair dryer“ as it delivers very hot dry air.

The final destination was France to visit a cereal breeding station at Estrées Saint Denis in the Picardy region, north of Paris. This is an important area for dairy and beef cattle and arable crops. The breeding focus is on wheat for north-west Europe with an eye on the UK market.

Although each breeder had a different approach to their work, as well as original thoughts on agricultural sustainability, some common messages came through. A broad view for introducing wider sustainability criteria into new crops can be summarised as requirements for •

adaptation to climate change

•

more resilient crops to ensure food security

•

plant traits to reduce harmful environmental impacts of farming

The most important resources available to a breeder’s success are new sources of genetic material and the ‘core’ environments in which they select and test their varieties. Genetic improvements come from crossing of elite parents or other plant types such as old varieties, ‘exotic’ varieties or landraces. Extra genetic variation comes from seed banks and through the use of new genetic technologies to enhance diversity in desirable traits. Breeders have their own strategies to identify the best selection sites. The location of core sites has a big impact on a breeder’s success in achieving wide adaptation and maintaining competiveness in the market place.

A general view was that there is good utilisation of available genetic resources across breeding programmes, with increasing diversity in the range of material used. However, there is scope for improvement. What is most important is having a systematic approach to measuring or screening new plant material under field conditions. This is something that breeders cannot do alone. The research community has a role to play here.

There is high expectancy of continued yield improvements and it is likely that cereal yield potential will continue to increase at 1% per year. On farm, however, the picture is very different and in recent years crop yields have almost stagnated. This discrepancy between genetic yield potential and yields on farm is often put down to minimal yield limitations in small plots used by breeders and variety testing compared to the highly variable conditions in farmers’ fields.

2

To make progress, breeders might have to select differently, and cover a wider range of conditions, whilst farmers require more help to alleviate highly variable conditions in soil quality, disease or pest levels and nutrient supply.

With emphasis placed on breeding varieties with wide market appeal and wide climatic adaptation, it might appear that producing varieties or crops adapted specifically to local conditions is off the agenda. Whilst wide adaptation makes commercial sense, breeders also recognise that locally adapted crops could be of increasing value in our changing climate. In some cases, breeders would like to undertake more direct selection, or at least to exploit this type of information, as this could help crops adapt better, especially to soil or climatic limitations.

In many parts of Europe, approaches to cereal breeding programmes will not need to make major changes to keep pace with the predictions for climate change. However, where changes include a temperature rise of several oC, or where seasonal variation becomes more extreme, then plant breeders will need to introduce much more genetic diversity to cope with shifts in temperature and soil moisture.

If temperature rises are at the upper levels predicted then agriculture in some regions will need to consider if should attempt to grow the same crop species. Under this scenario, adjusting crop rotations to sustain agricultural production will impact not only on the activities of plant breeding but it will become an important political issue.

The proposal that breeding and variety testing could include wider sustainability criteria was discussed throughout the tour. At present, successful varieties are characterised by high yields in response to fertilisers, fungicides and plant growth regulators and without competition from weeds. In future, evaluation could go beyond the long-established criteria for yield and quality improvements with environmental criteria becoming as important as the more obvious economic considerations.

To a large extent sustainability traits already exist in cereal varieties, but at present we do not, or cannot, evaluate them. A clear possibility in the near future is for varieties to include traits such as increased nutrient use efficiency or good performance at reduced fertiliser inputs. Added nutritional value is also likely, as are much improved pest and disease resistances. Both of which would make crops cheaper to grow and reduce the risk of poor yields.

At present, the production of inexpensive food and environmental benefits of agriculture appear to be in conflict because of the high input nature of modern agricultural production.

However, these aspects could converge over time, if the whole of agricultural production, including plant breeding and variety testing, embraced a more holistic approach.

3

It is clear that plant breeding and the science community will need to work more closely to address the serious challenges face by agriculture. Science has been good at delivering tools, but less so at providing applications. Publically funded science has made significant advances in understanding the genetic basis of plant growth and developmental processes, especially in model species. However, new collaborations and funding is required to apply this scientific knowledge to practical plant breeding.

My sincere thanks go to the Farmers Club Charitable Trust for giving me the opportunity to undertake this study. I am also very grateful to the warm hospitality and enthusiastic responses of the plant breeders I met during my tour of Germany and France. This insight into the workings and aspirations of plant breeders in crop improvement and variety testing will be of considerable value to future research and extension work.

Agricultural sustainability must embrace efficient use of all resources including genetic material, soil quality, non-renewable and renewable energy and agronomic inputs. This is essential for us to develop a longer-term appreciation of farming potential and sustainability of our natural environment. This study will now hand over its findings to others in the supply chain, including the wider plant breeding community and the official variety testing authorities. In doing so two important questions arise: •

Is there a trade-off between breeding for yield and quality improvements and traits with wider public-good value?

•

Who pays for the extra costs incurred by breeders and variety testing systems when assessing additional public goods attributed to new varieties?

Steve Hoad can be contacted at SAC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG. Email: steve.hoad@sac.ac.uk; Telephone: 0131 535 4342.

4