Browsing by Subject "Saatgutproduktion"

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    Design and assessment of breeding strategies for hybrid wheat in Europe
    (2018) Boeven, Philipp Hans Günter; Würschum, Tobias
    Wheat is one of the top three global staple crops, possesses the largest global cultivation area, and plays a key role for the world’s future food security. However, its projected yield increase is insufficient to meet the future food and feed demand of an ever-growing world population. Consequently, the rate of breeding progress and productivity of wheat must be increased. Unfortunately, current wheat line breeding has a low return on investment mainly due to high levels of farm saved seeds, which makes wheat less attractive for the plant breeding industry and leads to lower investments and progress compared to other crops where the hybrid technology is established. Hybrid breeding is a worldwide success story in many crops but is not yet established in wheat. Hybrid wheat promises increased yield gain due to the exploitation of heterosis, higher yield stability and stabilized return on investments for breeding companies which warrants further investment and breeding progress in this important stable crop. The self-pollinating nature of wheat is a major bottleneck for hybrid seed production and efficient hybrid wheat breeding requires the redesign of the wheat floral architecture to enhance cross-pollination. Furthermore, the longterm success of hybrid wheat is crucially dependent on the establishment of heterotic groups, on the identification of a high yielding heterotic pattern, and finally, on the realized amount of heterosis and hybrid performance. Therefore, the main objectives of my thesis research were to: (i) analyze the genetic diversity and adaptation in a global winter wheat collection and evaluate how diversity trends could be used to support the development of heterotic groups in wheat; (ii) assess the relationship between heterosis and genetic distance under maximized diversity and evaluate the usefulness of exotic germplasm for hybrid wheat breeding; (iii) dissect the genetic architecture underlying male floral traits in wheat to enable genomics-assisted breeding approaches and investigate the trait seed set which is most crucial for an efficient hybrid seed production. The analyses of genetic diversity in a large worldwide panel of 1,110 winter wheat varieties released during the past decades showed no major population structure but revealed genetically distinct subgroups. Most of the global diversity trends could be explained by breeding history and were associated with geographical origin and long-term domestication. We found that the frequency of the copy number variants at the Photoperiod-B1 (Ppd-B1) and the Vernalization-A1 (Vrn-A1) loci reflect wheat adaptation to the environmental conditions of the different regions of origin. Thus, adaptation issues add an additional layer of complexity and hamper the direct introgression of genetic diversity to support the genetic divergence between heterotic pools. Based on all these analyses, we proposed HyBFrame, a unified framework illustrating how global wheat genetic diversity can be used to support and accelerate reciprocal recurrent selection for the development of genetically distinct heterotic groups in wheat. In a second experiment, we produced 2,046 wheat hybrids by crossing elite with elite lines as well as elite with exotic lines and performed multi-environmental field trials. Interestingly, we found an average midparent heterosis of about 10% in elite crosses as well as in exotic crosses and observed no evidence for a breakdown of heterosis under maximized genetic distance among the hybrid parents. Genetic distance based on genome-wide molecular markers revealed only a very weak association with midparent heterosis for grain yield. Here, we elaborated a functional Rogers’ distance giving weight to heterosis loci and observed a strong positive association between heterosis and this novel distance measure. Hence, considering the genetic architecture of heterosis revealed a more accurate picture of the relationship between heterosis and genetic distance. In addition, the genetic architecture of heterosis in wheat is crucially dependent on the genetic background. We found that a higher number of negative dominance and dominance-by-dominance epistatic effects can reduce the level of absolute heterosis in wide crosses between exotic lines and elite testers. Moreover, hybrid performance in wheat is mainly driven by parental per se performance. Thus, elite lines are favorable for hybrid breeding and should be employed as the starting material for heterotic grouping. Hybrid seed production is the major bottleneck for hybrid wheat breeding and explains the low market share of hybrid wheat varieties. Seed set on the female plants in crossing blocks is the most crucial trait for hybrid seed production in wheat. We tested 31 male lines and evaluated the hybrid seed set on two female tester lines in crossing blocks. Seed set showed a large genotypic variation and a high heritability suggesting that recurrent selection for increased seed set is feasible. The major problem is the synchronized flowering between male and female lines, making the evaluation of seed set in large panels very complex and difficult. Hence, indirect male floral traits with high correlation to the trait seed set would be promising to breed for improved hybrid seed production. We found a strong association between seed set and visual anther extrusion, underscoring that indirect male floral traits have a high potential for preliminary male screenings. We also dissected the genetic architecture underlying promising male floral traits and assessed the potential of genomics-assisted approaches for their improvement. We employed a panel of 209 diverse wheat lines and found a complex genetic architecture underlying all male floral traits. The Reduced height gene Rht-D1 was identified as the only major QTL, for which the commonly used height-reducing allele showed negative effects on male floral traits. This genetic architecture with many moderate- or small-effect QTL limits classical marker-assisted selection. In contrast, genomic prediction yielded moderate to high prediction abilities for anther extrusion. Finally, we proposed a breeding scheme to increase cross-pollination in wheat based on a combination of phenotypic and genomics-assisted selection. Taken together, hybrid breeding in wheat is a very promising approach and the next years will show if all of the current issues can be solved. This thesis research contributed to breeding strategies for hybrid wheat breeding and to the general understanding of heterosis in crops.
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    Phenotypic and genotypic assessment of traits with relevance for hybrid breeding in European winter wheat
    (2015) Langer, Simon Martin; Würschum, Tobias
    Hybrid breeding in wheat has recently received increased interest, especially in Europe, and large public and private projects investigating hybrid wheat breeding have been launched. Hybrid breeding has been a great success story for allogamous crops and is seen as a promising approach to increase the yield potential in wheat. Wheat covers more of the world’s surface than any other food crop and is the second main staple crop for human consumption. It can be produced under widely varying conditions and is grown all around the globe, yet, yield gain has declined and is lagging behind the needs of the constantly growing human population. Future challenges in wheat breeding such as the establishment of hybrid varieties and the adaptation of breeding germplasm to increasing stresses caused by climatic changes also in Europe require knowledge-based improvements of relevant traits and phenotyping approaches suited for applied high-throughput plant breeding. A major limitation for the establishment and the production of hybrid wheat is the lack of a cost-efficient hybrid seed production system. This requires the generation of parental ideotypes which maximize the cross-fertilization capability. Male parents should have an extended time of flowering, extrude anthers and widely shed large amounts of viable pollen. Females need increased receptivity for male pollen by opening the glumes and extruding stigmatic hair. Furthermore, male plants should be taller than females and a synchronized timing of flowering between the two parents is also of utmost importance. Employing a set of European elite winter wheat lines, we developed and evaluated phenotyping methods for important floral and flowering traits with relevance for improved cross-pollination (Publication I). We observed high heritabilities for important traits such as ‘pollen mass’ (h2=0.72) and ‘anther extrusion’ (h2=0.91). In addition, genotypic variances were significant which warrants further breeding success. Positive correlations were found among important flowering and floral characteristics which enables the improvement of outcrossing by indirect selection. ‘Pollen mass’ for example, was associated with ‘anther extrusion’, ‘anther length’ and ‘plant height’. Our findings suggest the utility of the developed phenotyping approaches for applied plant breeding and the potential of the traits to assist in the design of the male ideotype for increased cross-fertilization. We investigated the genetic architecture of flowering time and plant height (Publication II and III). A panel of 410 European winter wheat varieties was genotyped by a genotyping-by-sequencing approach and in addition, analyzed for the effects of specific candidate genes. The major factor affecting flowering time was the photoperiod regulator Ppd-D1 (58.2% of explained genotypic variance) followed by Ppd-B1 copy number variation (3.2%). For plant height, the two candidate loci Rht-D1 (37.0%) and Rht-B1 (14.0%) had the largest effects on the trait but contrary to reports in the literature did not contribute to flowering time control. In addition, we identified several small effect QTL and epistatic QTL responsible for fine-adjustments of these two traits. Population structure and genetic relatedness in European elite wheat lines was assessed using different types of markers (Publication IV). Results for relatedness differed for the marker types but consistently showed the absence of a major population structure. Regarding the large wheat genome our results revealed that a high number of markers is necessary as there are regions with only low coverage. Concordantly, we were not able to identify the major flowering locus Ppd-D1 without targeted candidate gene analysis. Observations on the findings on population structure could be confirmed in Publication II and III and in addition, the geographical distribution of important flowering time and plant height genes displayed the historical development of wheat breeding in Europe. This information on genetic relatedness among lines can also be employed to assist the establishment of hybrid wheat.
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    Untersuchungen zur bakteriellen Erkrankung Acidovorax valerianellae an Feldsalat
    (2012) Braje, Inga; Hinrichs-Berger, Jan
    The aim of this study was to contribute to clarifying the epidemiology of the phytopathogenic bacterium Acidovorax valerianellae on corn salad [Valerianella locusta (L.)]. To this end, research was conducted on infection conditions, cultivar sensitivities, transmission paths and seeds. Based on these results, control strategies shall be demonstrated. The tests performed under infectious conditions revealed that the infection of A. valerianellae is dependent on temperature, leaf age, inoculum concentration and leaf moisture, as well as the relative humidity. Inoculation was possible at temperatures between 10 °C and 30 °C. It was possible for leaves of any age to be infected. Moreover, infection was independent of the inoculum concentration, and occurred between 102 and 107 cfu/ml. The speed of infection and the characteristics of the symptoms increased with increasing temperature, leaf age and inoculum concentration. Both the duration of leaf moisture and the relative humidity played a crucial role in the infection process. Under dry conditions, inoculated corn salad plants developed no symptoms. However, infestation increased significantly under humid conditions or during humid periods. Five hours of leaf moisture sufficed for an infection to occur. It was demonstrated that targeted dry growth conditions with short leaf moisture periods constitute an option for controlling A. valerianellae. All 13 tested commercial corn salad cultivars were prone to A. valerianellae. However, the resistance of the wild type V. rimosa was confirmed. For this reason, it seems advisable to cross the wild type with commercial cultivars. A. valerianellae endured for up to eleven months in the soil. Some of the corn salad cultivars cultivated immediately (and one up to eleven months, respectively) after infected plants were severely infected. The number of infected plants decreased in line with increased rotting of infected old plant material. A cultivation break of at least twelve months and the rotation of crops therefore appear to be appropriate ways to eliminate A. valerianellae from the soil. No alternative hosts were detected in the experiments or in the literature. In addition, this study revealed that A. valerianellae is transmitted via seeds. It is therefore important to focus on healthy seeds to prevent the further dissemination of this hazardous disease to uncontaminated crop land. Seeds with natural A. valerianellae contamination were tested using a variety of decontamination methods. Warm water treatment (43 °C for 20 minutes, 55 °C for 20 minutes, 60 °C for 5 minutes) or hot steam treatment (66 °C for 105 seconds) managed to reduce the contamination rate. However, it was not possible to completely eliminate the bacterium. In summary, sowing healthy seeds after a cultivation break of at least twelve months and under dry growth conditions may reduce the infestation of corn salad with A. valerianellae.