1. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Notes from 1 st MC meeting of COST 860, Brussels 11 th May 2004 including amendments from the WG leader planning meeting Wednesday 12 th May concerning STSM as well as program for SUSVAR Opening Workshop By Hanne Østergård Chair, COST 860

2. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Agenda MC meeting chaired by Hanne Østergård 8. Working plan for the implementation of the COST Action. 11.00-12.00 – Presentation of objectives and working programme. Setting up groups for discussion of the Working Plan 12.00-14.00 Lunch and Group discussion 14.00-17.00 – Organisation and management/distribution of tasks Working groups: leaders, milestones and deliverables – Time-table for 2004-2008 – Organisation and management/distribution of tasks (cont.) STSM: assessment panel, assessment criteria, application dates Dissemination: homepage and others Association of national projects 9. Place and date of next meeting 10. Miscellaneous 11. Closing

3. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Hanne Østergård Senior Research Specialist Risø National Laboratory,Roskilde, Denmark EFRC, UK, copyright

4. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Sustainable low-input cereal production (1) Reduced pesticides towards no pesticides (organic) Reduced synthetic fertiliser towards no synthetic fertilisers (organic) Emphasis on crop rotation Implying Less possibilities for control of weeds, pests and diseases Less possibilities for nutritional input More need for understanding the processes in the field to be able to prevent problems in stead of cure them More need for skillfull management based on choice of varieties (homogeneous or heterogeneous), rotations, cropping methods

5. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Sustainable low-input cereal production (2) Questions for research Are new varieties/more diverse crops necessary to obtain stable yield and good quality? Which new breeding methods are needed to develop these varieties, variety mixtures and segregating populations? How can we measure important varietal characteristics for selecting such varieties in a simple way? Questions for variety testing and practice How can we organise low input/organic variety testing? How can we involve farmers in selection and breeding of the desirable varieties?

6. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity About 60 national projects from 18 countries on: – Cropping systems: Low input, sustainable, organic, integrated – Cereals: wheat, barley, triticale And some of the factors: – Crop diversity: Variety mixtures, populations, intercropping – Genetic resources, diversity, molecular markers – Breeding methods, marker assisted, participatory – Genotype-environment interactions, multivariate statistics – Nutrient uptake efficiency, soil microbiology – Weed competitiveness, weed management – Disease resistance, disease complexes – Variety trials, variety testing Co-ordination of nationally funded research activities Why a COST Action –

7. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity The main objective To establish methods for selecting varieties, lines and populations to develop ways to increase and make use of – crop diversity and – genotype-environment interactions to ensure stable and acceptable yields of good-quality crops for low-input, especially organic, cereal production in Europe

8. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity WG 1 Genetics & Breeding WG 3 Plant – Soil Interactions WG 4 Plant – Plant Interactions WG 5 Plant Disease Complex WG 6 Variety testing & certification Organisation of activities and reciprocal benefits WG 2 Biostatistics

9. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Isabelle Goldringer, F

10. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Stat. Anl. of ringtest Stat. experience in variety trials Non-normal distributed data WG 3 WG 6WG 5WG 4 Other WG’s WG 2 GxE interactions WG 1 WG 5 WG 1 WG 4 Kristian Kristensen, DK

11. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Fabio Mascher, CH WG 3 Plant-Soil Interactions Cereal genotype - microbes interactions Nutrient acquisition study beneficial interaction of microbial root colonizers in low- input/organic farming. determine specific interaction between cereal genotypes and soil micro-organisms. understand nutrient acquisition and use by plants in low-input/organic farming Stabilize the low-input production system provide information to breeders develop strategies to favorize the beneficial microflora study the use of microbial inoculants

12. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity WG 4: Plant-plant interaction What makes species mixtures perform better than the individual species? Individual species Species mixture Identify basis for added value of variety mixtures Develop strategy for combining species in order to maximize added value Develop screening procedure for individual varieties for their performance in mixture with respect to productivity, stability and weed suppression Lammert Baastian, NL

13. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Scott Philipps, UK Main Goals Analyses of interactions among pathogens on the same host plant, methods for disease assessment and field resistance in complex systems, disease assessment in variety mixtures and populations

14. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Justification VCU Which Plant Characteristics Methodology for evaluation Guidelines VCU  Inventory and analysis of comparative variety research (organic vs conventional)  Inventory of plant characteristics which are currently used in organic variety trials  Inventory of evaluation methodologies  Analysis influence environment on variety ranking Aart Osmann, NL WG 6: Variety testing and certification Main goal:Develop guidelines for setting up VCU (Value for Cultivation and Use) testing for organic and low input agriculture

15. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Who are we? - as it is listed in the proposal 100 experts (scientists, breeders, extension service, variety testing authoratives) 80 technicians 100 PhD students (genetics, plant pathology, weed science, plant physiology, agronomy, biostatistics) Austria Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Hungary Italy Latvia The Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Slovak Republic Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom

16. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Expertice of MC members on scale from 0 to 5

17. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity

18. Remember professional and personal values! This Action concerns cereal production being ‘sustainable’ ‘low input’ ‘integrated’ ‘organic’ What is behind these words? Do we have different definitions depending on our professional and personal values (what we think before we think, often unspoken assumptions)

19. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Conclusion from group work All WGs have to take into account – Diversity – Definition of varieties – Genotype, phenotypes and populations – Quality in the broad sense – Alternative uses of cereals in cropping systems – Adaptation to cropping systems – Low input, integrated and organic systems – And all other WGs

20. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Input to WGs from group work WG1 – Discuss breeding goals Prebreeding programmes Multilocation variety trials Local adaptation – Evaluate association genetics methods and mapping populations – Metanalyses (WG2) WG2 – Genotype-environment interactions – Stability analyses – Data analyses for variety mixtures in different cropping systems (spatial components)

21. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Input to WGs from group work WG3 – Microorganism – plant variety interaction – Genotypes-soil disturbance interactions – Nutrient acquisition and use efficiency WG4 – How to create variety mixtures – Simple methods to evaluate competitive ability against weeds for breeders – allelopathy

22. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Input to WGs from group work WG5 – Ring tests for disease complexes? – Which diseases play an important role in organic farming – Fusarium resistance – Influence of environment and cropping system on disease complexes – Methods (assessment and analysis) to evaluate diseases in variety mixtures and populations WG6 – Inventory of testing systems and extraction testing systems and approval criteria Specific organic aspects – Comparison between testing in different growing systems

23. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity General organisation of WGs One responsible WG leader (can appoint a deputy), subgroup leaders for particular purposes are OK WG leader responsibilities – 3 monthly e-mail letter to MC + WG leaders – 6 monthly word document to web site – 12 monthly report (summary and plans) to COST – Minutes of any WG related meetings Begin – Emails: end August 2004, end October 2004 – Report: end January 2005

24. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Preliminary Time table as in proposal

25. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Revised time table for 2004 SUSVAR Opening Workshop all WGs and MC – 28-30 June Roskilde, Denmark (local org. Hanne Østergård) Focus finding workshop – 11 th noon -13 th noon Mid October, Witzenhausen (local org. Maria Finckh) Common workshop WG1 and ECO-PB on low input/organic breeding strategies and use of markers – 5-8 December, Driebergen, NL (local org. Edith Lammerts)

26. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Short Term Scientific Mission (min 1 week, max 1 month) STSM applications (forms on webside) are send to Maria Finckh ‘not before July 1 st 2004’ (this is suggested to be changed to ‘starting from now’ UNLESS COMMENTS FROM YOU BEFORE JUNE 1 ST ) assessment panel: – chair + vice chair + 1-2 WG leaders assessment criteria: – support the aim of SUSVAR application dates not needed from the beginning Focusing on learning methods among scientists

27. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Dissemination Home page: www.cost860.dkwww.cost860.dk – Organised by Hanne Østergård supported by Adrian Newton and ? – Team service system – A preliminary version before June meeting Flexible brochure – before the end of the year Common trials STSM reports on web site as well as in reports from WGs Remember to acknowledge COST860 when writing papers based on results from the networking COST supports meetings/training courses between breeders, extension service, farmers, scientists Interaction with other COST Actions

28. SUSVAR: Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity Association of projects HØ receives description of projects associated to the action to put on our home page To be member of the Action one has in general to have a project associated – projects need to be revised according to the present list