German National Evaluation Programme for

Plant Genetic Resources (EVA II)

Sarah Sensen

Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (Germany, Bonn)

Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity

Overview

→ Development of EVA II

→ Organisational structure

→ Workflow

→ Composition and management of the testing collection

→ Information system

→ Strength of EVA II

→ Awareness raising

→ Ideas for a global evaluation network

Development of EVA II

→ Situation before EVA II:

• Huge amounts of genebank (observation) and other evaluation data were collected for various crops, but data from different sources, test-conditions or different years cannot be compared (random and fragmented scores, no standard lines, etc.)

→ Objectives of EVA II:

• Establishment of a network for the evaluation of PGR for wheat and barley

• Improvement of secundary evaluation on disease resistances with coordinated and collective evaluation with the same methods and same standards

• Development of a dynamic information system for data acquisition and assessment

Organisational structure of EVA II

Expert group• Representatives of

• breeding companies • Association for Promotion of Private Plant Breeding (GFP)• scientific partner (JKI and others))• Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE)

• Meeting 1-2 x per annuum• Decision on traits and composition of the testing collection

Julius Kuehn Institute

Institute for Resistance Research and Stress

Tolerance

(coordinator)

Association for the Promotion of Private Plant Breeding e.V.

PartnerPrivate Plant

Breeders(companies)

Cooperation partner

Federal Office for Agriculture and

FoodPrivileged

guest

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1011

12 13

14

15

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2

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16

4

Partner in the cooperation treaty

→ Breeding companies1. Pflanzenzucht SaKa GmbH & Co. KG

2. KWS-LOCHOW GmbH

3. Saaten Union GmbH

4. Limagrain GmbH

5. Dieckmann GmbH & Co. KG

6. SECOBRA Saatzucht GmbH

7. W. von Borries-Eckendorf GmbH & Co. KG

8. Lantmännen SW Seed Hadmersleben GmbH

9. RAGT 2N

10.Nordsaat Saatzuchtgesellschaft mbH

11. Deutsche Saatveredelung AG

12.Saatzucht Josef Breun GmbH & Co. KG

13.Saatzucht Streng-Engelen GmbH & Co. KG

14.Pflanzenzucht Oberlimpurg Dr. Franck

15.Saatzucht Bauer GmbH & Co. KG

16.Syngenta Seeds GmbH

→ Scientific institutions1. Julius Kühn-Institut, Quedlinburg (Koordinator)2. Landesanstalt für Landwirtschaft, Institut für

Pflanzenbau und Pflanzenzüchtung, Freising3. Landwirtschaftliche Lehranstalten Triesdorf4. Universität Hohenheim, Landessaatzuchtanstalt

Workflow in EVA II

1. Supply of seeds of interesting genotypes (selected by the expert group)

2. Multiplication and primary evaluation of the genotypes (coordinator)

3. Package of the testing collections and sending to the partners, preparation of the evaluation lists within the database (coordinator)

4. Cultivation of the testing collections in small-scale parcels and evaluation of the disease infection (partners)

5. Documentation of results in excel lists and upload of the lists (partners)

6. Import in the database and release of the results for consortium partners only (coordinator)

Management of the assortments

→ Bonitur lists (in Excel) are provided online and can later be imported automatically online.

→ Import of the genotype data in the multi crop passport descriptor format (FAO & EURISCO)

Sources of seeds

→ Genebank material (primary evaluation)

• Search in databases (e.g. GRIN)

• Publications

• Genebank collections (e.g. IPK, ICARDA, CIMMYT)

→ Varieties

• Proposals of the partners

• Publications

→ Material from research projects, e.g.

• New resistance genes

• Combination of different resistance genes

Composition of the testing collection

→ Number of genotypes / testing collection / year ~ 50 genotypes

49%

30%

10% 10%

New genotypes

Best genotypes of the previous year for anew evaluation

Genotypes with inconsistent results

Further genotypes

Assortments Number

Winter wheat 639

Spring wheat 251

Winter barley 412

Spring barley 541

Total 1843

Total number of evaluated genotypes in EVA II (11/2013)

Focus for the testing collection

Year Wheat Barley

2005 Drechslera tritici-repentis (DTR); Septoria; Fusarium

Physiological leaf spots

2007 Leaf rust Rhynchosporium

2009 DTR (tan blotch) Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV)

2010 Septoria; DTR Leaf rust; Rhynchosporium

2011 Septoria; DTR Leaf rust; Rhynchosporium

2012 Stripe rust BYDV; Rhynchosporium; net blotch

Information system

→ Serves for the acquisition, analyses, provision of evaluation data

→ Serves for the information flow of the cooperation partner

→ The acquired results are shared among the consortium partners for direct use in their respective breeding programs.

→ After 3 years, the data become freely accessible (public domain).

→ Partners can search the results by year, crop, disease or location

Database – search opportunities

http://eva2.jki.bund.de/portal/public/classic/

Database – results

http://eva2.jki.bund.de/portal/public/classic/

Outlook:

Dataflow of German C&E data into other databases

Data in EVA II

Acc

essi

ble

for

EV

A

part

ner

German National Inventory for PGR (PGRDEU)

The European Search Catalogue on PGR (EURISCO)

Genesys

Pub

lic d

omai

n

Data format agreed in ECPGR

Multi Crop Passport Descriptors

Strength of EVA II

→ Possibility to compare several years (standard reference lines)

→ Possibility to compare several locations (different agro-ecological sites, agreed sites)

→ Close collaboration of breeders to generate synergies; free exclusive access to all data in the first 3 years as an incentive (self-interest, no external funding)

Frequency distribution of the scores

Score1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

0

10

20

30

40

Nu

mb

er o

f G

eno

typ

es

20022003

Winter wheat – Leaf rust

Awareness raising for EVA II

→ ECPGR Task Force: User Engagement

• Summer 2013, Lorenzo Maggioni (Bioversity), Riccardo Bocci, Jan Nedelnik, Frank Ordon

• Proposal to extent the EVA II system to Europe in ECPGR

• Improvement of the cooperation between science, genebanks and users by evaluating genetic resources and broadening to more traits

• Stronger inclusion of farmers as stakeholders

→ EC Preparatory action for genetic resources

• Proposal to extent the EVA II system to Europe

→ FAO´s Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building • Presentation of EVA II

Ideas for a global evaluation network

→ Public-Private-Partnership on the value addition chain

→ CGIAR centre or the Advanced Research Institutions as possible coordinators of the network

→ Partner from developed and developing countries as well as big breeding institutions involved in the network

→ Advantage for all partner to get comparable evaluation results from diverse agro-ecological sites

Source: IT/COGIS-1/15/Report

Thank you for your kind attention!