Traits
Plant breeding is an important pillar for sustainable and productive agriculture by providing high yielding cultivars with optimised nutritional quality, resource-use efficiency and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Our research aims at understanding and exploiting key agronomical traits for developing genomics-assisted selection tools to assist breeding of improved cultivars for various crop species including forage grasses and legumes, apples, cereals, beans and peas. In particular, we focus on
- sustainability-related traits such as water-use efficiency in wheat or drought resistance in ryegrass and tall fescue
- resistance to biotic stresses such as fire blight in apple, bacterial wilt in ryegrass or southern anthracnose in red clover
- quality traits such as diurnal leaf starch content in red clover or compositional traits in sainfoin
We combine state of the art genotyping and phenotyping technologies to identify genomic regions and to investigate the role of candidate genes in the control of the traits under study. We develop methods to introgress novel or improved traits into breeding germplasm by means of intercrossing, genomics-assisted selection or cis-genesis.
Highlights of our research on important traits are featured here:
Candidate genes for bacterial wilt resistance in Italian ryegrass
High-resolution bulked segregant analysis revealed a ~300 kb region associated with resistance to Xanthomonas translucens pv. graminis.
Perspectives for reducing seed shattering in ryegrasses
A review of the mechanisms of seed shattering in the grass family reveals strategies and candidate genes to improve this important trait in ryegrasses.
Field evaluation of the cisgenic fire blight resistant apple line C44.4.146
A cisgenic modification in ‘Gala Galaxy’ conferred resistance to floral fire blight and maintained the cultivar-specific characteristics.
Disease resistance in a worldwide red clover germplasm collection
High variability for and candidate loci associated with resistance to southern anthracnose and clover rot in a worldwide collection of red clover provide the basis for genomics-assisted breeding.
Resistance to an emerging viral disease of common bean in Latin America
A candidate gene associated with resistance to the novel bean leaf crumple virus sheds light in the breeding efforts against this and other viral diseases threatening bean production.
Breeding for drought tolerant grasses
Genome-wide association study identifies candidate genes for biomass formation under water deficit in perennial ryegrass.
High energy red clover
A non-destructive method to select for high leaf starch content in red clover.
Large-scale phenotyping of seed yield in Italian ryegrass
Collaborative project between Agroscope and MPB to improve seed yield in Italian ryegrass through phenotypic and genomics-assisted selection.