The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Researchers in pursuit of top crops root out new varieties
Autumn is a key time as decisions are made on how well plants have progressed during tests
Autumn is a crucial time for new crop varieties as decisions are made on their progress through the official testing system.
Cultivars at National Listing (NL) stage are judged according to their Value for Cultivation and Use (VCU).
After achieving NL status, the best wheat, barley and oat varieties are presented as candidates for crop Recommended Lists (RL)).
Plant breeders continue to achieve annual yield gains and improvements in grain quality. However, temporal changes in climate, market needs and agronomic practices make crop improvement increasingly challenging.
A perfect variety may be sought, though it’s unlikely to be reached.
To deliver a more complete cereal variety, our testing system needs a wellconnected breeding and end-user supply chain that gives greater emphasis to variety resilience, and not just improved yield or quality.
Overcoming yield plateauing, which is evident on many farms, will be one of the measures of future success. Reasons why gains in genetic improvement in trials are not always realised on farm are complex, but closer attention to breeding for the farming system is needed.
New varieties in NL and RL trials are evaluated under high-input conditions, which differ from typical farm practice. Therefore, yield potential seen in trials may not be evident in farm situations.
A better understanding of crop resilience under different agronomic and climatic conditions will better connect genetic gain with the challenges faced on farm.
The AHBD consider a variety’s agronomic merit to support their RL decisions. They are also testing some crops under a wider range of growing conditions. For the SRUC cereals lists, varieties with weak agronomic features are excluded, even if they are high yielding under trial conditions.
Research brings support to breeders and growers in understanding how crop traits can be linked to better resilience. For example, at SRUC we have identified barley varieties with better quality husks that could be used in breeding to reduce the risk of grain skinning.
In wheat, there are breeding lines with improved seed set under stressful climatic conditions, which is a key feature of variety robustness.
New plant breeding technologies such as genomic selection and high-throughput crop screening have potential to speed up the breeding of varieties by identifying plants with desirable traits according to their genetic make-up.
These technologies will increase capability in the amount of crop data that can be captured from research and breeders’ trials, and the speed at which this information can be applied to predict complex traits such as yield and grain quality, or crop resilience.
Embracing wider genetic diversity in crop traits and parental choice for breeding programmes will add value to future varieties. Supported by technological advances, research can explore how adaptation in “landraces” or yield stability in variety blends adds value to crop resilience, in the face of increasing climatic and agronomic challenges.