Items from Sweden.

ITEMS FROM SWEDEN

 

THE NORDIC GENEBANK
P.O. Box 41, SE230 53, Alnarp, Sweden.

 

The diversity in Nordic wheat material. [p. 126]

Agnese Kolodinska Brantestam, Louise Bondo, Oscar Diaz, and Bent Skovmand.

During more than 25 years of existence, the Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) has collected various plant material including more that 1500 Triticum sp. accessions, representing 18 species.

At the NGB, we have evaluated wheat accessions for morphology, agronomic performance, quality components and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Projects characterizing Nordic spring and winter wheat can be found on the webpage of the Nordic gene bank (http://www.nordgen.org/ngb/) as follows:

 Spring wheat  - susceptibility to diseases (Erysiphe graminis, Puccinia recondite, Puccinia striiformis, Septoria nodorum)
   - morphology (awenednes, ear density, ear emergence, growing time, lodging, plant growth habit, lower glume hair, plant height)
 Winter wheat  - cold resistance (winter survival)

Triticum sp. material stored at the NGB includes cultivated wheat from the Nordic countries starting from the early breeding period at the end of the 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries and landraces up to recent cultivars from 1990s (http://www.nordgen.org/ngb/).

Currently, we carry out a project aiming at reviewing published diversity information on Nordic wheat and other cereals in order to estimate the breeding impact on diversity of these crops. This project indicates that Nordic wheat has significantly changed during more than a century of breeding. Relative genetic gains for agronomic characteristics, e.g., yield and reduced plant height, were obtained in Nordic wheat germ plasm (Ortiz et al. 1998, 2003). There are also changes in race specific disease resistance genes of Nordic wheat. The variability in bread making quality characteristics has increased compared to material from the middle of the 20th century (Uhlen 1990; Johansson et al. 1993). However, much of the disease resistance and quality data are still missing on older material to make a comparison if genetic diversity has decreased or not. New genes for quality traits and disease resistance from foreign cereal material have been introduced in modern wheat. However, loss of certain alleles and qualities also were detected, emphasizing that conservation of Nordic landraces and old cultivars is important as they can form valuable sources of genetic diversity for future breeding.

According to molecular data no significant decrease of diversity is present in Nordic wheat (Christiansen et al. 2002). Though temporal fluctuations were found that indicates that monitoring diversity changes in the Nordic material is important in order to improve breeding strategies and to maintain successful cereal cultivation in the future.

References.

  • Christiansen MJ, Andersen SB, and Ortiz R. 2002. Diversity changes in an intensively bred wheat germplasm during the 20th century. Mol Breed 9:1-11.
  • Johansson E, Henriksson P, Svensson G, and Heneen K. 1993. Detection, shromasomal location and evaluation of the functional value of a novel high MT glutenin subunit found in Swedish wheats. J Cereal Sci 17:237-245.
  • Ortiz R, Madsen S, and Andersen SB. 1998. Diversity in Nordic spring wheat cultivars (1901-93). Acta Agric Scand, Sect B, Soil and Plant Sci 48:229-238.
  • Ortiz R, Lund B, and Andersen S-B. 2003. Genetic gains and changes in morphotype of Nordic spring wheat (1920-1993) under contrasting environments. Genet Res Crop Evol 50:455-459.
  • Uhlen AK. 1990. The composition of high molecular weight glutenin subunits in Norwegian wheats and their relation to bread-making quality. Nor J Agric Sci 4:1-17.