Plants for the Future: sustainable and innovative agricultural systems Plant ETP was established to support the transition to more sustainable and innovative agricultural systems that remain within planetary boundaries. To actively contribute to this transition, Plant ETP established a multi-stakeholder working group on Sustainable Agriculture, consisting of experts from academia, the seed and breeding industry, agricultural service providers, and the farming community. From a plant sector perspective, this working group considers the challenges and opportunities of agricultural value chains in a holistic way, and aims to develop a vision for future systems spanning food, feed, and biobased raw materials. The working group identified three main and interdependent drivers that should be developed in parallel and which will enable the transition towards more environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable agricultural systems: Innovative agricultural produce will provide sustainable and healthy food, feed and biobased raw materials for the bioeconomy, meeting consumer needs and societal expectations. Resilient production (eco)systems will provide sufficient qualitative, nutritious food, feed, and biobased raw materials for society, while promoting One Health. Agricultural data will be harnessed to support agricultural systems by leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to balance innovative agricultural produce and resilient production (eco)systems, matching produce with demand and enabling sustainable agricultural production through tailored advice. “The report outlines the recommendations for research and innovation to support the transition towards more sustainable agricultural systems to meet the goals of the EU Green Deal and envisions how agriculture will likely transition in the short, medium and long term,” explains Dr Roy Neilson, senior soil scientist at the Hutton and co-vice-chair of the Plants for the Future working group. “The research is clearly aligned with the Institute’s vision and research, and there are several projects highlighted in the document that Hutton either lead or is a project partner. We look forward to engaging with stakeholders to deliver future agricultural sustainability.” The full report, titledPlants for the future’s perspective on sustainable agriculture – R&I Recommendation Report, is available on the Plant ETP website. A report by a multi-stakeholder working group of the European Technology Platform ‘Plants for the Future’ (Plant ETP) featuring contributions from James Hutton Institute scientists, has identified three principles that will help transition towards more environmentally and socio-economically sustainable agricultural systems. 16 Hutton Highlights Researchers at the James Hutton Institute and James Hutton Limited are exploring ways to reduce the losses caused by potato cyst nematodes (PCN) in commercial potato production. PCN is an increasing challenge to the UK fresh and processing potato markets, and the target of concerted efforts to protect Scotland’s seed potato and bulb sectors , worth £112m and £7m, respectively, to the rural economy. At the recent Improving Globaland Local IPM conference organised by the Association of Applied Biologists, Hutton researcher Dr James Price presented the results of a study to assess the virulence ofGlobodera pallida , one of two PCN species present in the UK, populations against specific potato breeding lines. Several varieties with resistance againstG. pallidahave recently become available, but these are mainly processing varieties and most varieties grown are still susceptible to the species. The lack of resistant varieties againstG. pallidahas led to its spread throughout the UK and now infestations in Scottish seed land are threatening the future of potato seed production. Potato breeders are producing novel lines with resistance toG. pallida , some of which combine PCN resistances from more than one source. The research team looked at howG. pallidapopulations with different levels of virulence compared against recently developed potato breeding lines from the James Hutton Limited pre-breeding programme. This provided an indication of whether these new potato lines will offer broad-spectrum and durable resistance againstG. pallidain the future. Promising lines were identified which were highly resistant to all theG. pallidapopulations tested. “Producing resistant varieties that are attractive to growers and processors is incredibly important if we’re to protect the future of potato production across the UK. However, resistance is only half the battle, and we need to be considering tolerance too. Resistance will reduce PCN multiplication, whilst tolerance will protect yields. “Growing only tolerant and not resistant varieties, while attractive to growers, will make the PCN problem much worse. Growing only resistant varieties such as Innovator does not guarantee strong yields and so these aren’t always favoured by growers,” explained Dr Price. “Ideally we want to grow tolerant varieties with stacked PCN resistances. This will protect yields for farmers and reduce PCN multiplication, ultimately reducing the need for nematicides, saving money and pesticide dependence.” The work presented at the AAB conference was submitted for publication in a special issue of Annals of Applied Biology, and if accepted, the publication should be available by the summer of 2022. Assessing durability of potato breeding lines against PCN threat Soil seed banks are a hidden stock for plant diversity and are critical for the recovery of disturbed ecosystems. A new study co-authored by Prof Robin Pakeman, a senior scientist within the James Hutton Institute’s Ecological Sciences department, has brought together research on the density and diversity of seed banks in an effort to try and understand their global patterns. The analysis highlighted a range of climatic and soil variables that were major determinants of seed bank diversity, with diversity peaking at intermediate values of soil pH and annual temperature range and increasing with annual precipitation. For soil seed bank density, soil bulk density was the most important predictor; density increased below 750 g cm-3. Density peaked at intermediate values of temperature of the warmest month and of precipitation of the driest month. Mapping soil seed bank values onto global maps revealed considerable geospatial variation. For diversity, western North America, central South America, central Africa, central Europe, southern and eastern Asia and eastern Oceania had high values. In contrast, eastern and central North America, northern Africa and central Asia had low values. For density, northern North America, northern Europe and northern Asia had higher values than elsewhere. Prof Pakeman said the global analysis of soil seed bank diversity and density strongly suggests that the biodiversity of sub-tropical and tropical forests is particularly vulnerable to large-scale climatic or land-use disturbances. “In contrast, the higher-latitude plant diversity, while currently low compared to that in tropical rainforest, can rely on high soil seed bank densities for resilience to large-scale climate or land-use induced disturbances,” Prof Pakeman added. The study is published in the latest issue ofNature Communications . Paper: Yang, X., Baskin, C.C., Baskin, J.M. et al. Global patterns of potential future plant diversity hidden in soil seed banks. Nat Commun12 , 7023 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41467-021-27379-1. Potential future plant diversity hidden in soil seed banks February 2022 17 Comments?
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODU0MDE=