New hybrid breeding system for OSR crops

The new system, called Safecross, as well as providing the usual vigorous quality of hybrids, will also allow the breeders to ‘drop’ desirable agronomic characteristics into the existing genetics more easily than the previous hybrid system used by the company – the Ogura system.

Gunther Stiewe, from Sygenta, expects the European oilseed rape market to move quickly and forcibly in the direction of hybrids in the next decade.

“The market is expected to move from open pollinated to hybrids and this market for hybrids is growing all the time,” he said.

Currently hybrids accounted for 30 per cent of the market share in the oilseed rape sector but he envisaged this rising to two-thirds in 2015.

Mr Stiewe expected hybrids to be widely used in an emerging region for oilseed rape production – eastern Europe – where countries like Romania and Hungary are growing more rapeseed and will turn to hybrids as they offer a good solution to cold and heat stress.

The Safecross system will be aided by the development of the molecular marker system used by Syngenta. The breeders hope to double the number of marker points between now and 2011 to enable them to establish easily whether the seeds have resistance to diseases such as phoma and have desirable traits such as good oil content and standing power.

Syngenta aims to increase its testing sites by 25 per cent by 2015, in order to test more hybrid combinations, and aims to produce about four suitable female plants each year, which can then be crossed with a basic restorer male parent to produce the hybrid seed.

Although this system requires a longer process to get a suitable female plant, it differs from the Ogura system as any male plant can be used as the male restorer.

Nigel Padbury, from Syngenta Seeds NK, highlighted two benefits that the hybrids could offer to UK growers. “There’s the generic hybrid answer, where the hybrid is more vigorous, is able to withstand stress and is able to exploit the soil more readily,” he said.

This last trait would come into its own as fertiliser prices increased and growers looked towards varieties that could make the best of available nutrients.

“Secondly, when we have traits we want to introduce, be that a new type of disease resistance, the opportunity to drop that in through the male and create the core hybrid female is much easier. It will allow us to bring characteristics quite rapidly into existing genetics, ” he said.