The power of Nordic Pre-Breeding Pool in modern cereal breeding

Transcription

1 The power of Nordic Pre-Breeding Pool in modern cereal breeding Presentation at the seminar: Genetic resources a treasure trove for the future? (Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre and NordGen) Kringler Gjestegård, Gardermoen 22th November 2012 Lars Reitan Graminor

2 Plant Genetic Resources Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) are the heritage of mankind and jewels of nature, and should be treated like that. Adapting to different climatic and edaphic conditions over centuries of natural and human controlled selection have developed combinations of genes to give raise to strain, lines, populations and cultivars that we name with the common phrase PGR.

3 PGR It includes both wild species, wild forms of cultivated species, landraces and grown cultivars. Every stage has its story to tell, and might be a source of new knowledge and understanding, and of genetic source for present and future cultivar development.

4 Concerning the title of this lecture: What is power The strengt of.. The value of.. The synergetic effect of a construction or setup The ability to reach certain goals together The present AND future possibilities and spinoffs of a project

5 What is pre-breeding The troublesome and expensive link and process between unadapted PGR and the breeding or cultivar development itself. This includes both testing (phenotyping), sorting and selecting PGR itself - AND developing tools for finding and utilizing genes and information

6 What is pre-breeding pool The collection of interesting genetic material of concern In this context it also includes the available and created information connected to the pool

7 What is Nordic In this context: all or most of the breeding companies and institutions in the Nordic region that deals with plant breeding Finland: (Boreal) Sweden: (Lantmännen Lantbruk) Norway: (Graminor) Denmark: (Nordic Seed, and Sejet Plant breeding) Iceland: (Govn. breeding activity at LBHI)

8 What is modern traditional breeding - longlasting and stabile over generations of breeders Today situation is compromises between traditional breeding and new technologies

9 Todays technology phenotyping sciences in equipment and design modelling experimental designs computer power, algorithmic possibility Doubled Haploids (DH) for fast homozygotization Molecular and genomic information and structures DNA information - sequencing and mapping of genes for various traits MAS, SNP s, PCR, High throughput technologies

10 Tomorrows technology Precision of marker description and development High Speed calculations, analysis and sequencing of genetic information Mapping by sequencing, Genomic selection (GS)

11 GRAMINOR Graminor Breeding Company of Norway is the only commercial plant breeding institution in Norway. It is owned partly by agricultural producers through farmer s cooperation, and one third of the shares is owned by Government. The latter to secure breeding activities in noncommercial crops for our country. Our breeding activities in for instance cereals have long tradition and go back to the early days of the 20 th century.

12 Graminor AS Graminor Njøs GRAMINOR Bjørke

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14 PGR for use in own cereal breeding 1. Own best lines with particular traits that has to be combined with others. 2. Official available good cultivars with interesting traits (also competitors leagal available cultivars) 3. Old cultivars in NordGen and other gene banks 4. Land varieties/ races from the Nordic countries 5. Germplasm with special genes from anywhere 6. Wild forms of same species or closely related species available in collections.

15 Situated in the periphery of Europe, close to the north pole, earliness has been a central issue for all breeding activity, and for perennials, winter hardiness in addition. Thus, a fragile and vulnerable balance between progress and conservation of good gene-combinations has been a necessity, and an assortative (closely related) mating has often been chosen to balance these needs. We cross the best with the best.

16 Crossing with exotic genetic resources has always caused steps backwards, but both in the past and in present it has been and are necessary steps. In cereals, success in adopting sources of earliness depend on the combinations of the ability to mature at low temperatures. For a lot of different traits PGR sources have been used in order to increase the cultivar value.

17 New challenges always occur as time goes by. Now we learn that climate changes will create new problems and demands for the crops, and breeding strategies have to change. New genetic and technological tools open up for utilizing PGR better.

18 Research projects Graminor is involved in a number of research projects nationally and internationally for the period The main objectives of many of these projects are: - to introduce important genes (resistance to diseases, quality etc.) from wild relatives or non adapted genotypes - to develop marker assisted selection methods for important genes - to develop/adapt efficient methods to identify important diseases or measure important quality characters

19 Graminor is a participant in the big Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC), and Norway are responsible for the Chromosome 7B. But, Despite focus for a long time on molecar markers and MAS only the last years it has come of practical use in breeding, and wheat is in the lead. Our goal is to continue that track

20 Genebanks The big challenges for gene banks and conservers of PGR are good descriptors, good phenotypic data and database systems that able the utilizing of all collected information.

21 Organizing gene banks in clusters with uniform interface are essential for an effective utilization of PGR for the commercial breeding industry. Utilization of the world wide network and precise demographic information opens up for possibilities of foreseeing gene combinations and genetic resources that was previously impossible.

22 Norway had the resource in Svalbard to secure plant gene heritage, and it started with the Nordic Gene Bank storage. Lately, the Global Seed Vault has been a reality and is a tremendous important step in securing plant gene resources for future. Today samples are stored

23 Prebreeding related projects in Graminor barley at present Nordforsk Sustainable Primary Procuction in a Changing Climate Old cultivars and landraces tested for diseases Pickering material in NordGen for testing (H.vulg x H. bulbosum offspring for disease testing) Fusarium sources for mycotoxin testing PPP (Public Private Partnership) in barley

24 PPP (Public Private Partnership) Initiated by Nordic Council of Ministres Three pilot projects running PPP Barley: Combining knowledge from Field and Laboratory for Prebreeding in Barley As mentionned, six breeding participants Copenhagen University represent the Public

25 PPP-Barley Power It is a unique project in Nordic cooperation Bringing together all the cereal breeding companies in the Nordic countries Despite great competition there is a will and solutions for cooperation and sharing information starting point: each company supply the pool with 30 vital and actual lines or cultivars that is unknown for others than the owner. For each company these lines should represent the resistance sources and the spread of variation for each included trait.

26 All material is tested in all countries in order to look into (phenotype for) different traits of interest, and particularly disease resistanse. Also other very important traits connected to climate and future climate change are taken care of, e.g. earliness, plant height, and straw qualities. All information collected is put into a database for further examination and handling, and a web-based two-way info-system is built. This web-page is closed for other than the participants.

27 The first aim with the Pre-breeding pool is to create information on the present situation in disease resistance sources and the lack of it in Nordic barley material, and try to find and validate molecular markers for use in the breeding selection prosesses. Association mapping of the traits will be done.

28 The present disease focus are: Rhynchosporium secalis - Scald Drechlera teres - Net blotch Bipolaris sorokiniana - Leaf blotch Ramularia collo-cygni - Ramularia spot blotch Fusarium spp (e.g. F.graminearum, F.culmorum) Also resistance to two different races of nematodes, (Heterodera avena A1 and A2) are focused.

29 Ramularia testing on hillplot Værnes, Kvithamar (Stjørdal)

30 Ramularia

31 PPP-barley for fusarium at Staur, Norway

32 PPP Barley GRAMINOR

33 A proposed list of molecular markers for different traits of interest will be used for each breeder to pick markers to test how relevant they are in their breeding program (tested on 96 own lines), and general information to all will be given regarding the usefulness of each marker.

34 PPP-barley at Korpa, Iceland 2012

35 The next step ( future, extending the first two years) will be to use the new information to build populations and to search for lacking genes in relevant PGR (in gene banks). Whatever will happen to the project in future, the gene pool (180 lines) will go into the NordGen genebank and the information stored, but with restrictions for use in a period of time.

36 Conclusional remarks Gene banks and Global Vaults will have great impact on future Breeding, Agriculture and Mankind Big responsibility, both political and administrative, in order to take best care of and utilize the threasurs Building active Gene Pools for practical breeeding is vital and necessary to establish ownership to the material present and to open doors for using PGR. PPP-Barley is a step in that direction

37 Fujiyama in background? No, Hekla! PPP Barley GRAMINOR