Institute for Breeding Research on Agricultural Crops

The institute is charged with research on agrobiodiversity with regard to protecting, maintaining and utilising plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), to describing their genetic diversity, as well as supporting neglected or potentially novel crop species which offer interesting perspectives for Germany's agriculture yet require further genetic adaptation to agronomic requirements.

Another field of research is dedicated to the genetic adaptation of established crop plants to future environmental conditions, yield and quality requirements and novel types of use.

A third field of research comprises the development and evaluation of breeding methods which can be used to select plants for their trait expression (phenotyping) or for their marker or trait genotype (genotyping), or to generate and identify genotypes of interest by use of precision breeding (or SMART Breeding) approaches. Enriching genetic diversity and broadening the spectra of crop species provide the prerequisites for maintaining agrobiodiversity, the latter of which is essential for versatility as well as sustainability in agricultural production.

To meet its tasks, the institute is organized in four working groups. With their specific and complementary expertises these working groups take joint action to approach crop- or trait-specific problems from various sides, thus enabling integrative and meaningful plant-breeding research.

Main Research:

• Developing and evaluating strategies to protect and maintain genetic diversity of plant populations in their natural habitats (see also AEGRO website)
• Configuring national, European and global systems for the maintenance and sustainable utilisation of genetic diversity (e.g., European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources, international networks)
• Developing integral solutions for the national and international data management on PGRFA
• Breeding for durable resistance to late blight in potato
• Utilisation of the secondary genepool of barley
• Potentials to genetically adapt oat, rye, triticale, and sorghum with regard to plant health, kernel yield and quality, and suitability as energy crops
• Molecular characterisation of natural mechanisms for fertilisation control in rye
• Innovative breeding approaches to increase the importance of lupins as grain legumes in Germany's agriculture
• Development of molecular selection markers for regions of interest in rye, barley and lupin via comparative genome analysis based on model genomes
• Potentials of somatic hybridisation and double-haploid techniques in potato, rye, and lupins