Leaflet about the project
Stakeholders
The target groups are the same both within project partner countries and those countries outside of COBRA. They include farmers, seed producers, crop breeders, processors, traders & consumers, policy makers and society as a whole.
Although COBRA focuses on organic plant breeding in the EU its findings will have relevance to the wider agricultural sector both within the EU and internationally.
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Supporting and developing European organic plant breeding and seed production |
Background
Organic plant production is challenged by several factors. As well as weeds and seed borne pathogens, climate change is threatening to affect crop production through increasing weather variability. Plant breeding is a crucial factor in creating organic production systems that can better cope with such stresses. Producers need crop varieties with good resistance against pests and diseases (especially seed borne diseases); the ability to react to environmental stresses, especially climatic variability and high competitiveness against weeds.
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Results
COBRA involves a large number of field trials, which are currently still in their early stages. Initial results from research into automated and non-destructive high-throughput selection of quality parameters based on single seeds suggest that seed size sorting has a greater effect on yield and protein content than image-sorting. A variety of barley accessions are being assessed for their yield stability and ability to cope with climate change using a growth phytotron. Field trials designed to evaluate performance of winter wheat CCP have begun in the UK, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Estonia, Belgium, Sweden and Italy. Two case studies, one focusing on organic wheat seed production and breeding, the other on speciality food barley, have begun with questionnaires and interviews with plant breeders and food processors.
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Expected benefits and results
The expected benefits of COBRA are for the organic supply chain and society as a whole.
For Farmers new wheat, barley and grain legume varieties;
For Seed producers quicker or cheaper tools for seed health diagnostics;
For Breeders increased availability of high quality breeding material;
For Processors, traders and consumers choice of organic produce;
For Policy makers a clear information on current legal, institutional and socio-economic drivers;
Society as a whole will profit from the higher diversity within varieties as this will reduce required inputs in the future.
Expected outcomes
The COBRA network constitutes a unique opportunity to link up existing organic breeding initiatives via coordinated research and development across the whole sector. COBRA aims to achieve a breakthrough with regard to organic plant breeding in Europe by removing or lowering several technical and structural barriers in the sector. This includes - a large-scale multi-partner coordinated approach in Europe to tackle seed borne diseases in grain legumes and major cereals, using cutting edge technologies;
- a systematic approach to improve plant breeding efficiency in an organic context including legal issues pertaining to Hi-D breeding; and
- the identification of grain legume accessions with high resilience to climatic fluctuations.
Novel methods and approaches include - the development of non-destructive near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)-based single seed diagnostics to make seed screening faster and cheaper;
- the use of evolutionary breeding to increase tolerance for climate variability and
- the use of composite cross populations to select for early vigour and root growth.
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Main Project activities
COBRA focuses on wheat, barley, pea and faba bean across a range of activities.
These include controlling seed borne diseases and improving seed quality.
The focus in on how different approaches to breeding can deliver resilience while coping with multiple stressors and thereby increasing the efficiency of breeding approaches and methods.
Importantly, the project will aim to lower socio-economic and legal hurdles to organic seed production and organic plant breeding. There are a range of dissemination activities that will run throughout the whole project. |
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Search Organic Eprints
The open archive includes a vast amount of documents on organic certification
Search the open archive
More search options on www.orgprints.org
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COBRA will coordinate, link and expand on-going organic breeding activities in cereals and grain legumes across Europe. Besides regular breeding activities, one focus is on high-diversity (Hi-D) approaches to cope with future challenges such as climate change.
What: It draws together research and experts from previously fragmented areas.
Why: To provide improved seed and varieties for organic farmers.
Where: The project includes 41 partners across 18 European countries.
Coordinator: Principal Researcher in Crops and Agroforestry Robbie Girling, Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall, Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom
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News
- A stakeholder meeting will be held at the meeting in Turkey, organized for the IFOAM OWC 2014 in October 2014.
- The annual COBRA meeting was held in Nantes, France Monday 7th of July 2014 from 9.00 to 12.00, coinciding with the the SOLIBAM final conference, in collaboration with ECO-PB.
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Publications
JALLI, MARJA, GHASEMI, SHABNAM, HANNUKKALA, ASKO. 2013. Barley landraces as a potential of disease resistance in Nordic barley breeding. In: Pre-breeding - ?shing in the gene pool. Abstracts of oral presentations and posters of the European Plant Genetic Resources Conference 2013, NordGen, SLU, Alnarp, Sweden / Ortiz, R., ed.. NordGen, SLU. p. 94
DOMERADZKA, OLGA, CZEMBOR, JERZY H., JALLI, MARJA. 2013. New sources of resistance against net blotch in barley landrace collection. In: Pre-breeding - ?shing in the gene pool. Abstracts of oral presentations and posters of the European Plant Genetic Resources Conference 2013, NordGen, SLU, Alnarp, Sweden / Ortiz, R., ed.. NordGen, SLU. p. 108.
RAJALA, ARI, PELTONEN-SAINIO, PIRJO, JALLI, MARJA, TENHOLA-ROININEN, TEIJA, MANNINEN, OUTI. 2013 Nitrogen use efficiency indices in old and modern barley genotypes. In: Pre-breeding - ?shing in the gene pool. Abstracts of oral presentations and posters of the European Plant Genetic Resources Conference 2013, NordGen, SLU, Alnarp, Sweden / Ortiz, R., ed.. NordGen, SLU. p. 108.
BRUMLOP, S., REICHENBECHER, W., TAPPESER, B., & FINCKH, M. R. 2013. What is the SMARTest way to breed plants and increase agrobiodiversity? Euphytica, 194, 53-66
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10681-013-0960-9 |
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