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Description
Bread wheat accounts for nearly 50% of European cereal production. However, European crop yields have stagnated in major production areas due to abiotic and biotic stresses caused by climate change. Global wheat production is predicted to expand towards the Northern regions. Breeding climate-resilient wheat varieties is an important research task for the Baltic and Nordic countries to ensure safe and sustainable food systems. The NOBALwheat aims to establish a spring wheat collection originating from Baltic states and Norway and test it’s genetic plasticity and adaptation capacity to the climate change for different countries by phenotyping over three years and genotyping it. Superior genotypes will be directly introduced into breeding programs for the development of disease- and abiotic stress-resistant varieties. In combination with genotypic data, NOBAL wheat collection will provide highly valuable material for use as a training population and this will be a starting point to introduce genomic selection into breeding programs across Baltic countries. Setting up low-cost high throughput phenotyping platforms and introducing these into breeding programs across the Baltic countries will increase food security in the Nordic-Baltic region. Identification of vegetation indices and morphological traits for wheat plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, will allow to utilize it in precision agriculture with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources. All partners will benefit from know-how and technology transfer and will make use of the climate-fit wheat varieties to secure yields and ensure sustainable food systems, and will profit from the advanced field sensing technology which is an important part of digitalization in future agriculture.
Summary of project results
European wheat yields have recently stagnated in major production areas due to various stresses caused by climate change forcing future wheat production to expand towards the Northern regions, therefore breeding climate-resilient wheat varieties is an important research task for the Baltic and Nordic countries to ensure safe and sustainable food systems. The NOBALwheat project provided environmentally friendly solutions and contributed to ensure sustainable food systems. Wheat genotypes that are resilient to environmentally imposed challenges due to climate change were identified.
The NOBALwheat project established a spring wheat collection of 300 genotypes originating from Baltic states and Norway and tested its genetic plasticity and adaptation capacity in 12 diverse environments (3 seasons at 4 countries). As a final result, superior genotypes identified in this study will be directly utilized in the breeding process of the climate-fit wheat varieties at partnering institutions to secure yields and ensure sustainable food systems in the Nordic-Baltic region.
The project contributed to stable, safe and sustainable food systems nowadays threatened by a changing climate. Identifying spring wheat genotypes which have a higher resistance to disease, drought, higher capacity for water use efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency will be a source of germplasm for new cultivars. Newly developed cultivars facilitated application reduction of pesticides and fertilizers with an impact on water, soil health and biodiversity. Possibility to reduce applied fertilizers and pesticides contributed to safer, more nutritious and healthier food production for the society.
Together with that, setting up low-cost high throughput phenotyping platforms and introducing it into breeding programs across the Baltic countries, reduced phenotyping time and increased phenotyping precision.
Summary of bilateral results
From the very beginning of the project all partners clearly expressed their willingness to improve their expertise in advanced breeding methods such as remote sensing and genomic characterization of breeding material. All three Baltic states run public breeding programmes for spring wheat therefore such an expertise could be readily implemented into ongoing crop improvement to meet challenging uncertainties of the future climate in the region. NMBU (partner from the donor country) had relevant expertise in both remote sensing and genomic characterization know-how with prior application in plant breeding and was therefore an excellent fit for this project. Furthermore, active exchange of plant material and traditional phenotyping know-how between partners promoted a better understanding of region’s complexity regarding wheat cultivation and grain production. Genotypes with wide regional adaptation will be further employed by the partners to develop superior cultivars for sustainable grain production in Northern Europe. One of the best experiences from this project was how good the communication among project participants was, e.g. equipment failure mid-season could be easily solved simply by asking for possible solutions within project group which was usually faster than the response from official equipment dealer. During the last project meeting in Tartu (Estonia) all project participants expressed their willingness to continue collaboration after the end of the project. Partners are currently looking for relevant funding calls to maintain the network established at this project. Further activities will investigate genetic regulation of spike fertility traits in wheat. Depending on the available funding the partners will strive to widen the network by attracting more partners from the wider Nordic-Baltic Plant Phenotyping Network.