Project Nr. 2009/0218/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APIA/VIAA/099

Cereal breeding for organic farming:Cereal breeding for organic farming:crop traits related withcrop traits related with

competitiveness against weedscompetitiveness against weeds

Dace Piliksere

State Priekuli Plant Breeding Institute

Conference"Diversity in Plant Breeding and Agriculture: Strategies for Healthy Lifestyle"

Stende, 31.05.2012

Assessing weed suppression ability of crops has become more important with the development of organic plant breeding.

This report introduces with first two year (2009/2010 and 20101/2011) results of field experiments in the project “Development, improvement and implementation of environmentally friendly and sustainable crop breeding technologies” (2009/0218/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APIA/VIAA/099).

Introduction

The aim is to develop the methodology for an estimation of cereal varieties and breeding lines for their competitive capacity against weeds, to establish more effective criteria of the selection by significant crop characteristics in the breeding process for organic growing conditions.

The investigation is carried out with spring barley, spring oat, winter triticale and winter wheat varieties and breeding lines in organic crop rotations at State Priekuli Plant Breeding Institute and at State Stende Cereals Breeding Institute in Latvia.

Harrowing is not performed in the trials, to exclude the impact of this factor. Different observations:

plant density after emergence, growth habit at tillering and at stem elongation, tillering capacity, plant height at the beginning and at the end of stem elongation and before

the harvesting, crop plant development rate in terms of days from sowing to such

phenological phases as germination (emergence), tillering, stem elongation, heading and fully ripening,

amount of crop yield, – are taken into account to evaluate crop ability to suppress weed

growth in terms of weed ground cover several times in the growing season. Linear correlation method is used for statistical data analysis.

Material and Methods

BARLEY (Priekuli)

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Grain yield

Maturity (GS 92), days from sowing

Plant height (GS 90-92)

Coefficient of productive tillering

Number of productive stems

Heading (GS 50-52), days from sowing

Canopy height (GS 47-51)

Flag leaf width (GS 47-51)

Growth habit (GS 39)

Canopy height (GS 31-32)

Growth habit (GS 25-29)

Field germination

Weed ground cover(crop GS 31-39)

Weed ground cover(crop GS 51-65)

Weed ground cover(crop GS 90-92)

p<0,05

Results and Discussion

OATS (Stende)

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Grain yield

Maturity (GS 92), days from sowing

Plant height (GS 90-92)

Panicle stage (GS 50-52), days from sowing

Canopy height (GS 47-51)

Flag leaf width (GS 47-51)

Flag leaf length (GS 47-51)

Canopy height (GS 31-32)

Stem elongation (GS 30), days from sowing

Tillering (GS 21), days from sowing

Weed ground cover(crop GS 21-29)Weed ground cover(crop GS 31-39)Weed ground cover(crop GS 51-65)Weed ground cover(crop GS 90-92)

p<0,05

TRITICALE (Priekuli, Stende)

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Grain yield

Coefficient of productive tillering

Number of productive stems

Heading (GS 50-52), days from sowing

Canopy height (GS 47-51)

Canopy height (GS 31-32)

Stem elongation (GS 30), days from sowing

Crop plant density in the spring

Field germination

Weed ground cover(crop GS 31-39)Weed ground cover(crop GS 51-65)Weed ground cover(crop GS 90-92)

p<0,05

WHEAT (Stende, Priekuli)

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Grain yield

Maturity (GS 92), days from sowing

Plant height (GS 90-92)

Coefficient of productive tillering

Number of productive stems

Heading (GS 50-52), days from sowing

Canopy height (GS 47-51)

Flag leaf width (GS 47-51)

Flag leaf length (GS 47-51)

Canopy height (GS 31-32)

Stem elongation (GS 30), days from sowing

Crop plant density in the spring

Field germination

Weed ground cover(crop GS 31-39)Weed ground cover(crop GS 51-65)

Weed ground cover(crop GS 90-92)

p<0,05

Two year investigation results show both some similar correlations, and some inconsistent correlations between different crop and weed traits. Therefore field experiments should be carried out at least one more year to examine observed correlations.

Detection of the most important crop characteristics, which provide the competitiveness against weeds in cereals, is stressed as a desired result.

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

For great amount of data collecting as well as for suggestions for further work:

Vija Strazdina, Zaiga Vicupe, Zaiga Jansone - State Stende Cereals Breeding institute

Linda Legzdina, Indra Beinarovica, Arta Kronberga - State Priekuli Plant Breeding Institute

This study was performed with financial support of European Social Fund co-financed project 2009/0218/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APIA/VIAA/099

Thank you for your attention!