Trends and innovations in plant breeding

Breeders at KWS are successfully working on the development of Cercospora-tolerant sugarbeet varieties that offer high yields

In researching the complex trait drought stress, KWS is using a sophisticated system for phenotyping corn and sugarbeet plants.

The purpose of pre-breeding is to adapt the available breeding material in terms of resistance and yield to changing environmental conditions. To obtain the genetic diversity needed for this process, pre-breeders like Klaus Oldach cross exotic material, which comes from such sources as gene banks, with their own breeding material.

Just like their colleagues in other countries throughout Southeastern Europe, Romania's farmers have been frequently grappling with extreme periods of drought for years.

Soil with a high humus content is the key for healthy plants and a high yield. But it’s also an ideal carbon pool and contributes to climate protection. Anyone who builds up humus should be financially rewarded in the opinion of Rolf Sommer of the WWF. He’s a soils expert and knows about the challenges for the agricultural industry –and what farmers will need to change in the fields in the future.

Nothing shapes life in Argentina as much as tango, soccer and beef....

High planting density, standing power in a difficult climate and smaller corn cobs: Plant breeding and the targeted use of seeds bring Chinese farmers a more bountiful harvest and make it possible for them to rely more heavily on the use of machines. And with that, the days of hard field work are over for many people.

The earlier Cercospora leaf spot is stopped, the fewer the losses that sugarbeet farmers will suffer. In the “DataPlant” project, three research institutions and companies are combining their farming and optics expertise in an effort to automatically spot the fungus at an early stage – with the help of light, sensors, weather data and artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is gaining in importance in seed breeding. KWS is currently developing and conducting tests with a field robot in the U.S. to find out how plant traits can be identified automatically and precisely to support variety selection decisions and enable conclusions that will help improve yields and resistances in agricultural crops.

Something truly big is at stake: the future of the potato. It’s one of the most important foods there is. Germans eat around 60 kilograms of them a year – and the Latvians even twice that.