Bread wheat accounts for nearly 50% of European cereal production. However, European crop yields have stagnated in major production areas due to abiotic and biotic stresses caused by climate change. Global wheat production is predicted to expand towards the Northern regions. Breeding climate-resilient wheat varieties is an important research task for the Baltic and Nordic countries to ensure safe and sustainable food systems.
Superior genotypes will be directly introduced into breeding programs for the development of disease- and abiotic stress-resistant varieties. In combination with genotypic data, NOBALwheat collection will provide highly valuable material for use as a training population and this will be a starting point to introduce genomic selection into breeding programs across Baltic countries.
Setting up low-cost high throughput phenotyping platforms and introducing these into breeding programs across the Baltic countries will increase food security in the Nordic-Baltic region. Identification of vegetation indices and morphological traits for wheat plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, will allow utilizing it in precision agriculture with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources.
All partners will benefit from know-how and technology transfer and will make use of the climate-fit wheat varieties to secure yields and ensure sustainable food systems, and will profit from the advanced field sensing technology which is an important part of digitalization in future agriculture.
Project Information
The project is financed by the European Economic Area (EEA) and Norway Grants.
Eligible period: 01.01.2021–31.12.2023
Total budget: 997 953 €, METK’s budget: 149 500 €
The coordinator of the project is Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry. There are 5 partners from EU countries and Norway participating in the project.
Project Manager:
Ilmar Tamm
Senior Researcher
[email protected]
LITHUANIA: Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (LAMMC), - Project principal investigator. Project leader Dr. Gintaras Brazauskas (field trials, phenotyping, genotyping, HTPP platforms, yield and quality analyeses)
ESTONIA: Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge (METK) principal investigator Dr. Ilmar Tamm (field trials, phenotyping, HTPP platforms, yield and quality analyeses)
ESTONIA: University of Tartu (UT) principal investigator Prof. Hannes Kollist (gas-exchange analyses of selected varieties under field and lab conditions)
LATVIA: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Economics (AREI) principal investigator Dr. Māra Bleidere (field trials, phenotyping, genotyping, HTPP platforms, yield and quality analyeses)
NORWAY: Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), principal investigator Dr. Morten Lillemo (field trials, phenotyping, genotyping, HTPP platforms, yield and quality analyeses)
