Technische Universität München
Climate-adapted plant breeding: Improvement of crops with seeds from gene banks
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NEWS RELEASE
Improvement of crops with seeds from gene banks
Climate-adapted plant breeding
Securing plant production is a global task. Using a combination of new molecular and statistical methods, a research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) was able to show that material from gene banks can be used to improve traits in the maize plant. Old varieties can thus help to breed new varieties adapted to current and future climates.
The famous seed vault in Spitsbergen and national gene banks retain hundreds of thousands of seed samples to preserve old varieties of crop plants and the genetic diversity associated with them. Are these seed banks gold mines or seed cemeteries?
Researchers around the globe are investigating whether retained samples contain genes that have been lost through breeding which could be beneficial in counteracting climate change. A research team led by Chris-Carolin Schön, Professor of Plant Breeding at the TUM, is now presenting a solution to harness the genetic potential of old varieties, so-called landraces.
Have good plant characteristics been lost through breeding?
Since the 1960s, maize has been grown in Europe's fields mainly in the form of hybrid varieties. Hybrid varieties are developed through a specific breeding scheme and, for example are "trimmed" for high yield per hectare or low susceptibility to pests. In order to breed the best variety, a kit of characteristics is needed that could be relevant both today and in the future. Thus, genetic diversity is the basic prerequisite for breeding improved crop plants.
Hybrid varieties, however, carry only a small selection of traits compared to old varieties, the landraces. The question then is whether in addition to undesirable traits, beneficial traits have been lost in the course of many breeding generations. Therefore, the call for landraces has recently been revived, as they are characterized by high biodiversity and are considered a natural source of new genetic variation for breeding. Genetic variation reflects different variants of a gene and can be recognized by differences in the plant's appearance.
Cold-tolerant varieties: Are they the winners in times of climate change?
The early development of young plants is of particular importance in times of climate change. Drought and heat are the conditions most damaging to crops, such as maize, when they occur during flowering. When a plant can be cultivated early in the year because it can cope with cold, it has already left its flowering period behind when temperatures are particularly high in summer. This means that it is less damaged and yield losses can be avoided.
Professor Schön and her colleagues have been examining landrace varieties for cold tolerance characteristics. For this purpose, they have developed a genome-based method of identifying and making targeted use of beneficial gene resources. After a preliminary study, in which the researchers identified the genetic differences of individual varieties, the researchers selected three landraces for cultivation in different locations with varying climatic conditions within Europe.
Landraces provide advantageous genes for crop improvement
The research team focused on traits related to early plant development and also took into account the stability of the plant (How well does it withstand wind?) and the growth form (straight or bushy?). Using molecular methods that scan the entire genome, they were able to link the data from the field trials to genes relevant to the specific traits.
"We have shown how to find new genetic variation for important traits in agricultural production. The variation in these traits is determined by many genes and is not sufficiently available in current breeding material," says Manfred Mayer, lead author of the study. "This opens the door to the development of improved climate-adapted hybrid varieties."
Publication:
Manfred Mayer, Armin C. Hölker, Eric González-Segovia, Eva Bauer, Thomas Presterl, Milena Ouzunova, Albrecht E. Melchinger & Chris-Carolin Schön (2020): Discovery of beneficial haplotypes for complex traits in maize landraces. In: Nature Communications
More Information:
Scientists of the BMBF-funded project network (PPP) MAZE (University of Hohenheim, KWS Saat SE) were involved in the work. The work was mainly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the scope of the funding initiative "Plant Breeding Research for the Bioeconomy" ( Project "MAZE").
High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1578802
Contacts:
Prof. Dr. Chris-Carolin Schön
Technical University of Munich
E-Mail: chris.schoen@tum.de
Manfred Mayer
Scientist at the Chair of Plant Breeding
E-Mail: manfred.mayer@tum.de
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 600 professors, 44,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany. www.tum.de