Project: Breeding strategy for broad adaptation from Central to Eastern Europe combining diverse environments and modern technology

EASTBRED - Broadly adapted cereals for Central and South East European River Basins and Turkey_x000D__x000D_- superior milling and baking quality hard red and hard white winter wheat _x000D_- winter hardy and drought tolerant winter feed and malting barley_x000D_- high quality winter and spring durum wheat_x000D__x000D_EASTBRED aims at creating a unique and innovative selection strategy for widely adapted premium baking quality winter wheat, winter barley and durum wheat for the climatic regions starting with Central European River Basins from Austria along the Danube up to the Black sea. In anticipating future effects of global warming on local climate instability, know-how and genetic material from Turkey will be combined with know-how and genetic material from Central Europe. The CO partcipants of the project for development of the joint selection strategy are located in Austria, Croatia and Turkey; research work is performed also in Hungary and Romania. Due to political reasons, limited exchange of genetic material and very little international testing for broad adaptation has been conducted since the 1960's in the target regions of this project. Saatzucht Donau (SZD) has developed premium baking quality wheat varieties for Austria, Hungary and Slovakia already in the near past. The quality of these materials is highly appreciated by the market, but most of the lines are too late in maturity and not optimally adapted to the growing conditions in Turkey, especially concerning continental hard winters and severe drought. Climatic stress factors available in Turkey could become also more important in Central European regions due to climate change. Interestingly, Turkey includes part of the fertile crescent where all three target crops of this project have first naturally developed, have been first agriculturally cultivated and have started their worldwide spread. Collaboration with Turkey within a new selection strategy for stability over diverse environments shall allow a new spread of broadly adapted genetic material that will be initiated by this project. To reach this goal, first a core set of genotypes for extensive field and quality tests have to be defined and performed in the provisional selection regions. Multivariate statistical analysis of the obtained field and laboratory data will allow to define the selection strategy that will be imposed on newly developed genetic material thereafter. Exchange of expertise and development of new selection methods is particularly directed to milling and baking quality of wheat and quality attributes for the diverse uses of durum wheat firstly in Turkey, Croatia and Austria Considering the uses of durum wheat, Turkey can be regarded as a center of diversity. Appropriate quality analysis methods will be developed jointly betwen Turkey and Austria, adopting newest technologies like near infrared methods , protein electrophoresis, marker assisted selection (MAS) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Diverse methods of quality analysis are compared and new knowledge is created about the dynamical variation of quality characteristics when unique genetic material is grown under varying environmental conditions from Turkey over Romania to Croatia, Hungary and Austria. Every year, a large array of new genetic material will be created by crossing and improvement of Doubled Haploid Technology. By compiling data from all Ps, each year, only the best material will be selected to continue in the newly created multi location breeding system. This innovative selection system covers the pannonian climatic region and the continental climatic part of Turkey representing around 11 million hectares of winter wheat growing regions as target area. The finally selected materials will be applied for official test (VCU – Value for Cultivation and Use) in Turkey, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Austria and other countries in the target region such as Slovakia, Bulgaria or Serbia. _x000D_This Eurostars- project aims at creating a mutual trust for knowledge exchange, to establish a platform for continuous collaboration in developing advanced breeding material for the economical sake of the Ps in the mid and long term future. The project consortium includes the SME - Institute for Cereal Processing in Vienna, the Austrian SME - breeding company Saatzucht Donau and a Turkish and a Croatian seed development, multiplication and marketing company. The Turkish and Croatian Ps collaborate closely with research stations in their country. New varieties will be marketed by the collaborators._x000D_The new varieties that are developed in this project based on selection in environments over a huge geographical area should be more resistant to abiotic stress conditions that will become more important because of climatic change._x000D_As breeding and variety development is a long term business the CO profits for the participants will be realized after completion of the project over the next 2-10 years._x000D_

Acronym	EASTBRED (Reference Number: 4321)
Duration	01/09/2008 - 31/08/2011
Project Topic	Eastbred aims at creating a collaborative, innovative and unique indirect selection strategy for end-use quality of broadly adapted winter wheat, winter barley and durum wheat. Future yield loss caused by climatic change shall be prevented by breeding varieties with high stress tolerance.
Project Results (after finalisation)	Technology transfer _x000D_Know how developement_x000D_new analytical methods _x000D_market expansion
Network	Eurostars
Call	Eurostars Cut-Off 1

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
4	Institute for Cereal Processing Vienna (VFG)	Partner	Austria
4	Poljoopskrba-Medunarodna Tregovina d.o.o. (PMT)	Partner	Croatia
4	Progen Seed Ltd. (PG)	Partner	Türkiye
4	Saatzucht Donau GmbH&CoKG (SZD)	Coordinator	Austria