Project: ADVANCED GENOMIC BREEDING IN ORNAMENTALS
The goal of the project is to allow effective marker-assisted breeding for several ornament crops. The expectation is that for most crops new (superior) cultivars can be introduced in the market with two-five years after project finalisation. These results will allow the Ps to gain a huge competitive advantage over their competitors and therefore are expected to significantly increase their market position soon after the project. This will be realized through integration of genomics approaches into the breeding programs of these crops to significantly improve the effectiveness and speed of breeding for superior cultivars. _x000D_Classical breeding normally is a tedious and long lasting effort (often spanning a time-frame of 10-years or more). With marker-assisted breeding this can be reduced to 3-6 years. For a number of plants, usually food crops (e.g. potato, wheat, and tomato) these marker assisted selection techniques have successful been implemented. However, implementation of marker-assisted breeding techniques and especially genomic breeding approaches in ornamental breeding is severely lacking behind. This is caused by the absence of reliable publicly available molecular genetic information for most ornamental species (e.g. existing genetic maps or a reference genome sequence), the large size of many ornamental genomes, the regular presence of higher ploidy levels, the difficult seed set in some ornamental crops and associated clonal instead of seed propagation. In addition, product market size and fragmentation of the market over many small to medium sized stakeholders, prevented large investments to develop these techniques in the ornamental sector. New strategies and approaches developed by Genetwister Technologies B.V. now open the possibility to implement these advanced technologies also in this sector. _x000D_The anticipated results of the project are significant improvements in speed and accuracy of breeding programs. This not only will help to reduce costs for labour, but will also reduce costs associated with the volume of these programs. Money will become available for more efficient selection methods and increased complexity of breeding programs, as traits can be stockpiled and superior cultivars will be generated combining many favourable characteristics. This is even more so as it will also be possible to breed for characteristics that were too complicated with classical procedures. An improved breeding program with more genetic gain will provide the ornamental companies that take part in this project a huge competitive advantage over their competitors and therefore are expected to significantly increase their market shares. Within the framework of this project the participating companies will not only be able to generate and integrate all tools necessary for genomic breeding, but they will also be able to obtain relevant markers for their CO breeding strategies. Immediately after the project it should already be possible to link many traits with molecular markers. The results of the project will help to generate increased income levels soon after the finalisation of the project._x000D_Several ornamental crops are included in the project, not only to address different problems that are encountered in the ornamental sector, but also to lower genotyping costs by sharing initial production costs. A tetraploid balcony plant, Pelargonium and two cutflowers, Chrysanthemum (hexaploid) and Carnation (diploid and tetraploid) will be studied in the project. _x000D__x000D_
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Acronym
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Ornamental Breeding
(Reference Number: 6042)
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Duration
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01/04/2011 - 31/03/2014
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Project Topic
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This project provides effective genomic breeding for ornamental crops. New strategies allow implementation of these techniques, resulting in improved breeding programs. This gives the ornamental companies huge competitive advantage over competitors and significantly increased market shares.
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Network
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Eurostars
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Call
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Eurostars Cut-Off 5
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Project partner
