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Phenotypic diversity and evolution of farmer varieties of bread wheat on organic farms in Europe

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Abstract

The contribution of farmers to the creation and maintenance of genetic diversity is beginning to receive more recognition in developed countries. Although the use of landraces and historic varieties has largely disappeared in countries with industrialized agricultural systems and formal seed markets, certain varieties with particular cultural significance have been continuously cultivated by farmers and other varieties have been preserved ex situ in genebanks. Recently, associations of organic farmers have become involved in the conservation and use of landraces and historic varieties (called farmer varieties in this article) because these varieties possess agronomic and quality traits that they have not found in modern varieties. In this study, eight farmer varieties of bread wheat from Europe selected by participating farmers were evaluated in on-farm trials during 3 years of cultivation. Each variety was grown on each farm, and phenotypic changes in each variety were measured the third year in a replicated split-plot trial on each farm comparing the version of each variety the farmer had multiplied to a sample of each variety from the region of origin. All varieties, including the two modern pureline varieties used as checks, showed statistically significant phenotypic changes over 3 years of multiplication. However, the magnitude of these changes was moderate and did not call into question varietal identity or distinctness. In addition, some traits of putative agronomic and adaptive importance, such as grain weight per spike and thousand kernel weight, did not respond positively to natural selection (environmental conditions and management practices) which suggests the necessity of farmer selection to maintain and improve varietal performance.

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Abbreviations

EU:

European Union

FSO:

Farm seed opportunities

DUS:

Distinctness, uniformity and stability

VCU:

Value for cultivation and use

RSP:

Réseau Semences Paysannes

UPOV:

Union International pour la protection des obtentions végétales, International union for the protection of new varieties of plants

NIRS:

Near-infrared spectrometry

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

PH:

Plant height

SL:

Spike length

LLSD:

Last-leaf-to-spike-distance

SpTot:

Total number of spikelets per spike

SW:

Spike weight

GW/spike:

Grain weight per spike

KN/spike:

Kernel number per spike

TKW:

Thousand kernel weight

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by a Specific Targeted Research Project of the European Commission 6th Framework Program Priority 8.1 SSP: Opportunities for farm seed conservation, breeding and production Proposal/Contract no.: SSP-CT-2006-044345. JD was supported by an INRA postdoctoral fellowship. We would especially like to thank the Italian and Dutch farmers who have participated in the project: Giandomenico Cortiana, Tonino Del Santis, Piet van IJzendoorn and Piet van Zanten. Thanks also to the technical staff at the INRA station of le Rheu and le Moulon and to collaborators Veronique Chable, Edith Lammerts van Bueren, and Mathieu Thomas.

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Dawson, J.C., Serpolay, E., Giuliano, S. et al. Phenotypic diversity and evolution of farmer varieties of bread wheat on organic farms in Europe. Genet Resour Crop Evol 60, 145–163 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-012-9822-x

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