PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP FOR PRE-BREEDING

Together we are stronger. That’s the very essence of the Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding. Through the partnership, plant breeding companies in the Nordic region can cooperate in a non-competitive way on pre-breeding projects and cooperate on research with the Nordic public institutions. The Nordic Public-Private Partnership for pre-breeding is a collaboration aiming to strengthen plant pre-breeding in the Nordic countries and through its work promoting sustainable use of genetic resources in the Nordic region with its unique climate, temperature, and daylight. The Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding is funded by the Nordic countries and plant breeding entities, and the secretariat is placed at NordGen.

2021 was a busy year within the Nordic Public-Private Partnership for pre-breeding, as it marks the first year for the current program period 2021-2023 and several projects started their activities. Read more about the current projects below.

The Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding is a cooperation intended to strengthen plant breeding in the Nordic countries and through its work promote sustainable exploitation of genetic resources in the Nordic region with its unique climate, temperature, and daylight. The PPP is funded by the Nordic countries and plant breeding entities. The PPP Secretariat at NordGen is responsible for the administration of the Nordic PPP. The PPP Secretariat facilitates project management in cooperation with the PPP Steering Committee.

NORDFRUIT Apple is one year project with the purpose to complete earlier PPP apple projects and aim to facilitate implementation of new technologies into the Nordic apple breeding programs. Considerable efforts have been made in tree and fruit storage diseases. However, results need to be confirmed to capitalize the investments, and that is the main tasks of the one-year project. Supplementary phenotyping will be conducted for validation of genetic markers, as phenotyping failed in previous years due to flower frost in spring.

6P3 will focus on operationalization of technologies and methods developed during the previous two project phases. Phenotypic data will be combined with a plant-soil-climate model to understand interactions between genotypes, local environments, climate and management. The aim is to provide Nordic plant breeders with the latest drone and imaging technologies, efficient data management tools, and a climate and stress response model to predict and breed genotypes resilient to climate change and environmental stresses.

SustainPotato will bring the potato breeding programs in Sweden, Denmark and Norway together with scientists from the Nordic universities to develop and implement new genetic resources and molecular tools for effective disease resistance breeding. This new initiative is expected to provide Nordic potato breeders, growers and retailers with new competitive potato cultivars and improve research into new high-throughput phenotyping and genotype methods that will be needed for future genomic-led potato breeding.

Spring wheat is currently cultivated at the northernmost limit for the crop where it faces several challenges linked to climate change. The project aims to increase the spring wheat yield potential and self-sufficiency in the Nordic region. This requires extensive pre-breeding activities and collaboration between breeders and researchers across borders. The project focuses on the identification of germplasm, genes, and genetic markers associated with disease resistance pre-harvest sprouting, and early maturity. Special attention will be paid to drought tolerance and diseases expected to be of future relevance to spring wheat in northern Europe.