1919. Sheena was able to show us the first record book and the entries made back then.
She explained how grasses are selected for trial and grown to produce further material for ongoing trials, monitoring the swards performance in relation to plant health, vigour, colour, growth, habit and stability.
The main turf grass species that have been bred and evaluated are Perennial ryegrass, browntop bent and some fescues (slender, chewings and sheep’s fescues). The institute has spent years collecting plant material for trials, travelling all over the world to find suitable specimens that may have the traits they want to breed into new grass varieties; for example, salt, drought or shade tolerant. To find these
they will then proceed to the next stage where thousands of plants are sown and planted outside, individually as spaced plants, to monitor uniformity, vigour, growth habit and other traits. Following on from this, plants are selected and isolated to produce seed. There are several stages to this seed multiplication phase, the aim being to generate enough seed for further trials, both ‘in house’ and official testing. Eventually, enough plants are grown to
produce 2kg of seed, which is enough seed material to produce plants for the next series of trials. Some will go to the STRI, where further rigorous testing and scoring of the material will take place. If successful, the plant will then be sown for full seed production. In essence, all this work takes time and often results in twelve
Danny’s PhD student, Chloe Manzanares, gave a talk on her recent work that is on the cusp of identifying the genes responsible for self-incompatibility (SI) in grasses. This is a physiological mechanism that prevents plants from producing seed from self-pollination, the consequence of which, in many grass species, is inbreeding depression which leads to poorly-growing plants. Identifying the genes responsible for SI in all grass species, including those used for world-wide cereal production, will be a major scientific breakthrough, after over half a century of active research. Practically, knowing the variants of the genes involved in the SI response, plant breeders will be able to select certain individuals that, when crossed together,
Pot trials
grasses the plant collector needs to travel and find locations and environments that induce grasses to survive in these conditions.
Over the years, IBERS plant collector
and breeder, Ian Thomas, has done just that and has spent years travelling the globe collecting material. His work, along with that of other colleagues, has resulted in a collection of over 25,000 original plant types that are stored in a seed bank on site.
Seed is produced from the parent plant material and is harvested, put into special sealed bags and stored in a refrigerator at minus 18°C. This ensures material can be stored indefinitely. Ian records his collection and shares the information with other plant breeding organisations. It is amazing to think that someone has
to make a substantial guess on what traits are required for a new grass variety that will meet the future needs of greenkeepers and groundsmen in, say, fifteen years’ time.
Sheena was keen to point out some of the different target traits they look for when breeding new grasses: visual merit, shoot density, leaf colour, disease incidence, fineness of leaf.
Over the years, she has trialed many grasses and uses her experience, along with Ian’s, to advise on which parent plants are most likely to have the potential to develop into the target crop they are after. Parent plants are sown into plots and left to mature. They are mown on a regular basis to enable Sheena to monitor their performance. If the grass shows promise, and meets some of the traits they are looking for,
Crop pollination
years or more of development before a single gramme of seed is sold. Our next speaker was Dr Danny
Thorogood, also a plant breeder, who has spent years breeding grasses at IBERS. He led the team responsible for producing the now famous AberImp and AberElf varieties.
Embracing the new academic
environment the merger with Aberystwyth University has created, Danny is now turning his attention to researching how molecular markers can be used to speed up the process of selecting new grass varieties. He explained how modern science techniques, using the basic principles of genetics (Mendels laws of segregation and independent assortment) and genetic linkage can be applied to develop genetic maps of the genes (the genotype), that translate to the characteristics of the grass plant that we see and experience (the phenotype). Characteristics of the genes can be distinguished directly in the laboratory as differences in the properties of DNA (the chemical of life from which genes are made). By selecting for these differences in DNA properties, the characteristics of plants can be indirectly selected in the laboratory, without having to make laborious, time-consuming measurements in the field. The breeding programme can, therefore, be accelerated, bringing improved varieties to market quicker. One example has been the successful
screening of DNA variants that make plants stay green, a characteristic that has been bred into turf ryegrass varieties through the Germinal Holdings-funded IBERS programme.
will maximise hybrid vigour (the opposite of inbreeding depression) that has the potential to produce superior performing grass varieties for the turfgrass industry. Finally, we were given a tour of the
research centre, visiting the seed storage, seed trial areas and greenhouses to see some of the current promising grasses being researched and bred. It was interesting to see how new grass varieties are sought and trialed to get to the stage where the crop can be commercially grown for seed harvesting. The next stage of my seed education tour took me to a commercial seed production farm which specialises in growing and harvesting forage and amenity seed crops. A call to John Fairey, BSH Seed
Production Manager, soon got me an invitation to a farm in rural Herefordshire to see for myself the production of a specific well known Perennial ryegrass seed crop called Escapade. I was introduced to the farmer, Philip
Gorringe who, with his father, has been involved in growing specialist amenity grass crops for many years. They farm about 700 acres, of which
110 are currently sown with the Perennial ryegrasses, Escapade and Cadix. To ensure there is no cross pollination between different varieties, each crop is separated by several fields. To maximise the potential income from
a crop of grass, Philip grows his Ryegrass as a two year crop. This spreads costs and ensures a better return. New crop varieties are sown in September and follow a 7-9 year crop rotation. As an example, an amenity grass
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