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Public-Private Cooperation Aims at Finding Grasses Adapted to the Future Climate of the North

Date: 2020.11.24

In Northern Europe, climate change is expected to result in new growing conditions for the forage production, which is vital for feeding our animals. With milder and rainier autumns and winters, the growing season is expected to be up to three months longer than today. The PPP-project for pre-breeding of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) aims at finding new genetic resources which can be used to develop cultivars that can handle these new prerequisites.

Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) planted at NordGen’s fields.

The grass species perennial ryegrass doesn’t have fancy flowers or impressive fruits or seeds, but it does have other superpowers that we are dependent on for feeding our livestock. It is high yielding, has superior feed quality and productivity under frequent cutting regimes, is germinating fast and has a rapid growth.

NordGen is the secretariat for the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding and Odd Arne Rognli at the Department of Plant Sciences at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences is leading the project PPP for pre-breeding in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) Phase III which aims at improving the winter hardiness, persistence and other important traits for perennial ryegrass in northern Europe and thereby make agriculture in these countries more competitive.

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU

“Perennial ryegrass is the main forage grass species in Denmark and further south in Europe but is not well adapted to the continental parts of the Nordic region” he said. “However, we expect that the ongoing climate change will make farmers in these regions more interested in using perennial ryegrass”.

Collaboration is necessary

Breeding companies outside the Nordic/Baltic region are not breeding specifically for the small markets here. Due to the long-term nature of pre-breeding, combined with the small markets, a collaboration between the small breeding companies in this region is therefore necessary.

“Growth conditions in northern Europe differ from other parts of the world due to a unique combination of day length and other environmental variables like temperature. Only breeders in the Nordic and Baltic countries can be expected to breed for these special conditions. With this project, these breeders will get better tools and genetic variation to make adapted varieties” Odd Arne Rognli said.

The PPP project pre-breeding for perennial ryegrass has been ongoing since 2012. In the project, broad breeding populations has been created by combining genebank accessions and current cultivars. The broad breeding populations are undergoing natural selection at locations in all countries across the Nordic/Baltic region, and will serve as important germplasm from which the breeding companies can develop new adapted cultivars.

“In addition, we have identified genebank accessions with both broad and environment-specific adaptations by yield testing of all accessions at locations in all countries. These results are directly relevant for the breeding companies to utilize.”

Perennial ryegrass on Iceand

Project ends but activities continue

The project will be formally completed in the end of 2020, but several activities will continue, such as multi-location field trials, analyses of genotypic and phenotypic data, and publication of results.

“The Nordic and Baltic breeding companies will continue to collaborate on completing the experiments that were established during the last phase of the project. Hopefully, they will continue to collaborate in the future in new types of projects, also involving academic partners” said Odd Arne Rognli.

The partners in the PPP pre-breeding project for perennial ryegrass are:

The Norwegian University for Life Sciences

Aarhus University

The Icelandic Agricultural University

Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry

Estonian Crop Research Institute

Latvia Agricultural University