Information from the British Society of Plant Breeders Spring 2013Plant Breeding MattersPlant Breeding Matters

PVR campaignlaunched topromote plantbreeding andseed innovation

The campaign focuses on the importance of Plant Variety Rights (PVR) as aunique form of Intellectual Property (IP) to protect, stimulate and rewardprogress in crop improvement.

Central to the campaign is a new EU-registered PVR trademark which willappear across the seed industry on seed bags, stationery, invoices, websites,variety boards and marketing material.

More than 50 companies across the UK plant breeding and seeds sector havealready signed up to use the trademark.

BSPB Chief Executive Dr Penny Maplestone said: “Access to genetic innovation, delivered to the market through high-

performing varieties and quality seed, is the foundation for successful cropproduction. The PVR campaign highlights the critical role of IP protection insupporting a dedicated process of investment, innovation and independentevaluation within the plant breeding and seeds sector, and the benefits this bringsto farmers, food producers and their customers.”

AIC Seed Sector Chairman Paul Taylor said: “Companies and organisations licensed to use the

trademark are demonstrating their commitment toproviding the best product, backed by science anddelivered to the market through proven testingprocedures. Users of the trademark are investors inR&D, committed to supplying high quality, innovativeproducts to their customers.”

“The PVR trademark will serve as a prominentreminder of the research, innovation andindependent evaluation behind each new varietyand bag of purchased seed, and the need forcontinued investment in plant breedingto support a competitive farmingindustry and a dynamic value chain.”

Visit www.plantvarietyrights.orgto find out more.

Organisations across the food and farming industryare actively supporting the PVR campaign.

Andy Mitchell, Defra’sLead for varieties andseeds policy, said: “The PVR campaign willhelp to increase awareness of the essential role ofplant variety rights in sustaining investment inplant breeding. Defra supports continuedinnovation in plant varieties to increase theproductivity and competitiveness of UKagriculture and our resilience to climate change.”

Jonathan Tipples,HGCA Chairman, said: “Maintaining investment in a vibrantplant breeding industry is of criticalimportance to the UK cereals sector. Access tocontinued genetic improvement and diversity willenable our farmers to remain competitive andprofitable, and help to feed a growing worldpopulation. Plant variety rights support andprotect that innovation process, and the HGCAfully endorses the PVR campaign in raisingawareness of this vital issue.”

Colin West, Executive Directorof MAGB said:“The competitiveness of the British maltingindustry depends on a thriving plant breedingsector to deliver improvements in the quality,performance and yield of home-grown maltingbarley varieties. Effective protection of plantbreeders’ intellectual property rights is vital tomaintain investment in plant breeding innovation,and MAGB fully supports the PVR campaign andits objectives.”

Alex Waugh, Director Generalof nabim said:“Advances in wheat breedingand breadmaking technology have enabled flourmillers to use an increasing proportion of home-grown wheat in the grist, reversing the UK’shistorical dependence on imported breadwheat.By stimulating and rewarding successfulinnovation in breeding, the PVR system supportsaccess to a constant supply of new wheat varieties,delivering benefits not only in agronomic andyield terms but also through improved quality andconsistency in milling and flour performance.”

BSPB and AIC have jointly launched a new informationcampaign to highlight the critical role of plant breedinginnovation and quality seed.

Paul Taylor, AIC SeedSector Chairman

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The seed bank collections at the John InnesCentre (JIC) in Norwich, supported byBBSRC and Defra, are a key component ofthe UK’s contribution to conserving globalplant genetic resources. They include theBBSRC Small Grain Cereal Collections ofwheat, barley and oats, and the John InnesPisum Collection, the second largestcollection of pea germplasm in Europe.

facility. The unit’s internal atmosphere iscontrolled at a constant 1.5oC and 7-10%relative humidity to maintain the seedsamples – each packaged in carefullycategorised order – in optimum condition.Cereal seeds can be kept in medium-termstorage such as this for up to 30 years, butsamples must then be grown out andregenerated in the field and glasshouse tomaintain the viability of each accession.

Alongside the work of conserving andrenewing germplasm in the collections isthe vital task of identifying and classifyingthe genetic diversity within the material asa resource for plant scientists and breeders,as Mike Ambrose, manager of the JICGermplasm Resources Unit (GRU)explains:

“These working collections underpinprogress in many areas of plant science.The GRU is embedded within a uniqueresearch environment at JIC, with stronglinks to the commercial breeding sector.

“Through active collaboration withscientists and breeders we are searching forkey sources of genetic variation which willhelp to sustain and increase crop yields ata time of rapid environmental change andgrowing food demand.”

“Over the years, the material in thecollections has been successfully screened,leading to the identification of new sourcesof disease resistance, tolerance to drought,salinity and aluminium.

Maintaining plant biodiversity is at the heart of the global food security challenge. Improving the yieldand quality of our major food crops in the face of climate change, declining natural resources and newpest and disease threats depends critically on safeguarding access to novel sources of genetic variationand introducing them into commercial breeding programmes. That’s why plant breeders are keen toensure that the gene pool from which desirable traits can be selected remains as extensive as possible.The UK is host to a number of internationally significant initiatives to classify and conserve existingbiodiversity. Plant Breeding Matters visited the John Innes Centre to find out more.

Mike Ambrose, GRU manager, checksseedlings of pea accessions grown outto characterise and evaluate materialfrom the collection

Ears of barley varieties from theGRU show some of the breadth ofdiversity in the crop

The pea collection at the JIC houses3,582 accessions including wild speciesand landraces as well as specialistgenetic stocks for research

The 20,000+ accessions in the GRU arestored in a special low temperature, lowhumidity facility

FOCUS ON BIODIVERSITY

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The collections include diversegermplasm, including cultivated materialfrom all regions of the world in the form oflandraces and cultivars dating back to the1920s and beyond as well as specialistgenetic stocks generated through researchprogrammes. Collaboration with UK plantbreeders ensures that the collection alsoincludes the latest varieties available forcommercial cultivation. Breeders routinelydeposit samples of their UK National Listentries in a special BSPB collection held atJIC.

These accessions, more than 20,000 intotal, are housed in a 600m3 storage

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The Watkins Landrace WheatCollection comprises some 1,200selections of landrace wheats collectedfrom 32 different countries in the late1920s and early 1930s. It was initiatedby the British botanist A E Watkins,who contacted British consulatesaround the world to source locally-adapted material and assemble what isnow an irreplaceable record of thegenetic diversity and geographicaldistribution of wheat prior to theadvent of modern plant breeding andthe Green Revolution.

The collection has not previouslybeen used in wheat breedingprogrammes, and the research isgenerating particular interest as apotential source of beneficial traits suchas disease resistance, climate resilienceand nitrogen use efficiency.

Established in 2003, thecollaborative WGIN programme arosedirectly from a realisation in the early2000s that for two decades there had

been a widening gap betweencommercial plant breeding activitiesand publicly funded plant and cropresearch. WGIN’s aim is to support thedevelopment of new, improved wheatvarieties by generating valuable sourcesof pre-breeding material for use bycommercial breeders.

The programme combinesunderpinning work on molecularmarkers, genetic and genomic research,together with novel trait identification.WGIN is managed by a team includingrepresentatives of the key UK researchgroups and breeders. Currently fundedpartners are Rothamsted Research, theJohn Innes Centre and the University ofNottingham, who ensure that theprogramme and its outputs arecommunicated to the wider scientificand end user communities, via a website (www.WGIN.org.uk), an annualstakeholder forum, focused meetingsand peer reviewed publications.

Exploring genetic diversity in theJIC wheat collectionUK wheat breeders are actively involved in a programme ofresearch with scientists at the John Innes Centre to screen aunique collection of landrace wheats for valuable sources ofnovel variation as part of the Defra-funded Wheat GeneticImprovement Network (WGIN).

“More recently, there has been asteady rise in the number of enquiries wehave received from commercial plantbreeders, reflecting the increasedsignificance attached to plant geneticresources and the contribution gene bankssuch as this can make to future breedingprogrammes.

“The development of powerfulgenomics tools, high-throughputsequencing technology and molecularmarkers is opening up radical newopportunities to understand, unlock andexploit the genetic diversity within ourcollections, some of which we hope willtranslate into improving the crops oftomorrow.”

Mike Ambrose explains that the GRUalso has an important public engagementrole to explain and promote interest in thecollections:

“Through experience we have learntthat by far the best way to engage withpeople is through contact with thegrowing plant material. Whether it iscomparing wild relatives with cultivatedforms or viewing first-hand the impact ofbreeding innovations such as semi-dwarfing in wheat, there is nothing betterthan enabling visitors to view thevariation between different crops up close.

“As a recognised national facilitysupported by the BBSRC and thereforea publicly-funded resource, we believepeople should be made aware of theongoing need to conserve our plantgenetic heritage for future generations,and the vital role advances inbiotechnology can play in helping toidentify and harness the value of ournatural and adapted plant biodiversity.”

Cereal seeds can be stored for up to 30years before regeneration to produce anew stock

Aerial view of WGIN plotsPhoto: Rothamsted Research

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Scientists from the Millennium Seed BankPartnership, a global plant conservationprogramme led by the Royal BotanicGardens Kew, are implementing a newglobal project to collect wild relatives ofour major food crops for use in plantbreeding programmes to adapt new cropvarieties to the pressures of climate change.

Run in collaboration with the GlobalCrop Diversity Trust, the project willidentify gaps in the global collections ofcrop wild relatives for 26 crop species ofmajor importance for food security,including barley, carrot, oat, potato, pea,rye and wheat.

Ruth Eastwood, Crop Wild RelativeProject Co-ordinator at the MillenniumSeed Bank, says:

“Adapting agriculture to climatechange is one of the most urgent challengesof our time. There is, quite simply, nomore important step we can take than toensure that new varieties of our majorfood crops are adapted to be productive inthe new climates of the future.

“But our ability to breed these newvarieties cannot be taken for granted. Thegreatest source of untapped diversity, andin particular the richest source of diversityfor adaptive characteristics needed toconfront the challenges of climate change,are the wild relatives of our major foodcrops.

“Not only are these genetic resourceslargely uncollected, and thereforeunevaluated and unavailable to plantbreeders, many are also at risk ofextinction. This project will help ensurethat we win the race to collect crop wildrelatives, protect them, and adapt thematerial for use in plant breedingprogrammes.”

The MSB makes seed material

Harnessing wild genetic resources to helptackle climate changeScientists from the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, a global plant conservation programme led bythe Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, are implementing a new global project to collect wild relatives ofour major food crops for use in plant breeding programmes to adapt new crop varieties to thepressures of climate change.

Photo: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

available to researchers and breeders andits seed lists can be found online(http://data.kew.org/seedlist/index.html).All material collected through the“Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change”

project will be made available to usersthrough the standard material transferagreement of the International Treaty forPlant Genetic Resources for Food andAgriculture.

The Genetic ResourcesUnit at IBERS inAberystwyth housesaround 2,000 grassand clover populationsof the major UKagricultural species.

Kew Garden’s Millennium Seed Bank atWakehurst Place, West Sussex the largest ex situplant conservation project in the world with morethan 30,000 wild plant species,representingaround 10% of the world’s wild plant species.

The Commonwealth PotatoCollection at the James HuttonInstitute in Dundee is the UK’sgenebank of landrace and wildpotatoes.

The Genetic Resources Unit at theWarwick Crop Centre houses an importantcollection of cultivars, landraces and wildspecies of key vegetable crops such as leek,celery, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, lettuce,cauliflower and Brussels sprout.

The GermplasmResources Unit at theJohn Innes Centre inNorwich houses morethan 20,000 accessionsof wheat, oats, barleyand peas.

The National FruitCollection at Brogdalein Kent is the world’slargest collection offruit trees and plants,comprising over 4,000varieties of apples,pears, plums, cherries,cobnuts, currants andquinces.

Seed collections inside the Millennium Seed Bank

Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Building atWakehurst Place in Sussex

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Significantly, the potato produces morenutritious food from less land and in ashorter time than any other food crop,providing a key source of carbohydrate,protein and beneficial vitamins andminerals. Advances in the development ofimproved potato varieties thereforecontribute significantly to the world’sfuture food supply.

Traditionally, however, the rate ofintroduction of new potato varieties to theUK market has been slow, with a handfulof older varieties dominating market share.Established varieties such as Maris Piperand Estima still account for around a fifthof the UK potato area, but more recentlythe development of varieties for specificmarkets – from baby new and salad typesthrough to main crop varieties bredspecifically for processing or fresh retailoutlets – has seen steady growth in theuptake of newer cultivars.

The commercial success of new potatovarieties depends critically on meeting thequality requirements of processors andsupermarkets. The number of growersproducing potatoes speculatively hasreduced significantly, with an estimated80% of ex-farm output now grown undercontract.

For the processing sector, that meansfocusing on quality traits such as taste, frycolour, dry matter content and resistanceto low-temperature sweetening to improvestorage. For the retail sector attractive skinfinish, flesh colour and texture, eye depthand resistance to after-cooking darkeningare priority traits.

To meet the ‘sustainable intensification’challenge of producing more from less in a

changing climate, these quality attributesmust be combined with high levels ofmarketable yield, durable pest and diseaseresistance, and resilience to abiotic stressessuch as drought, frost and waterlogging.

Recent progress in adapting newpotato varieties to address changingmarket and agronomic requirements hasbeen built on enhanced genetic knowledgeand use of germplasm resources, inparticular through advances in pre-breeding, marker-assisted selection and theuse of mini tuber production to speed thebreeding cycle and multiplication of newvarieties.

Pre-breeding aims to identifypotentially valuable sources of geneticvariation from a diverse range of relatedmaterial. Central and South America arethe centre of origin and diversity of thetuber-bearing Solanum species, andcollecting expeditions during the 20thcentury helped establish an internationalnetwork of germplasm collections.

Progress in potato breedingThe UK produces some 6 million tonnes of potatoes, with aretail value of over £3 billion. Globally the potato is one of theworld’s most important food crops, with 330 million tonnesgrown worldwide.

The Commonwealth Potato Collection(CPC), held at the James Hutton Institutein Dundee, contains 1500 accessions ofaround 80 wild and cultivated potatospecies. Each accession traces back to ahandful of berries or tubers from potatoplants growing in Central or SouthAmerica. This material is used extensivelyin potato improvement as a source ofpotentially valuable traits for pest anddisease resistance, climate resilience andend-use quality.

Progress in DNA sequencing is furtherenhancing breeders’ ability to exploit the

Micro plants aretransplanted fromthe lab to thegreenhouse

Potato is the third largest food cropgrown in the world and contributessignificantly to the world’s food supply

Accessions from the CommonwealthPotato Collection at the James HuttonInstitute being grown out in theglasshouse

Potato plants are micro propagated inthe laboratory from tested pathogen-free mother plants

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British Society of Plant Breeders LtdBSPB House, 114 Lancaster Way Business Park, ELY CB6 3NXTel +44(0)1353 653200 Fax +44(0)1353 661156Email enquiries@bspb.co.uk Website www.bspb.co.uk

For selected potato varieties, a number ofpotato breeders are introducing the PotatoFSS Agreement – or PFA – from Spring2013.

BSPB will administer the PFA schemeon breeders’ behalf, acting as agent. The objective of the new scheme is toimprove transparency and compliance inthe collection of royalties on FSS in thepotato sector, so protecting investment for

the future development of improved potatovarieties.

The PFA scheme provides analternative option for breeders andgrowers, operating alongside the existingFSS collection system. Under the newscheme, growers wishing to purchase seedof PFA scheme varieties will be invited tosign a three-year agreement (PFA) and beassigned a unique and non-transferable

grower code. This will entitle the growerto purchase seed of any PFA schemevariety, under the breeders’ individual PFAcommercial terms and conditions for thevariety.

Further information including a list ofthe varieties included in the scheme can befound athttp://www.bspb.co.uk/fssd/potatoes.html

Potato Farm-Saved Seed Agreement Royalties paid for licensed seed production and on farm-saved seed use of potato varieties protected by PVR providebreeders with the vital income they need to continue breedingand bringing new varieties to the market. BSPB collects thoseroyalties for certain varieties on certified seed and for mostUK-grown protected varieties on the use of FSS.

natural diversity in the potato plant, and totarget specific genes of interest. The firstmolecular marker maps of the potato wereproduced in the late 1980s. These mapshave been used to analyse a large number

of potato traits impacting on tuber yieldand quality, while genes for several diseaseresistance traits, mainly late blight andPCN resistance, have been identified andisolated.

Continued advances in gene mappingand sequencing technology will underpinthe development of more efficient breedingmethods and outcomes. In particular,collaborative international research to mapthe complete genome sequence of potato,through the Potato Genome SequencingConsortium, will boost understanding ofpotato biology, and radically improvebreeders’ ability to characterise and selectfor desired traits.

While the development of new potatocultivars through conventional breedingremains a laborious and time-consumingprocess for many reasons, the rapidadvances taking place in moleculargenetics and marker technology offerexciting opportunities to tailor the potatocrop to the specific needs of growers,processors and consumers.

Micropropagated plants produce minitubers 10-50mm in size. Mini tubers arepathogen free and allow rapidpropagation of new lines, helping speedthe breeding process and theintroduction of new varieties

Potato breeders work closely withprocessors to develop new varietiesmeeting specific end user demands