Maize

Sustainable maintenance of grain maize production by improving classical resistance against the European corn borer

Persons in charge: Peter Westermeier, Flavio Foiada
Project duration: 01.03.2011 - 28.02.2014
Project partners: Bettina Kessel, Milena Ouzunova, Ralph Kreps, KWS SAAT AG; Joachim Eder, Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture
Project management agency: Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (BLE)
Funding: Bundesministeriums für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz (BMELV)

Project description:

The goal of this project is to improve resistance of the maize crop against the European Corn Borer (ECB) (Ostrinia nubilalis H.), a major insect pest with growing importance in Germany when considering the impacts of climate change. There is a great social interest in maintaining or expanding the current level of maize production under the threat of changing climatic conditions and the consequent area-wide spread of ECB. Resistance breeding is the most important strategy to minimize yield losses due to ECB, also because other strategies are either not accepted by public opinion (transgenic varieties), or they are bound with great expenses (biological or chemical control).

The project focuses on the development of locally adapted varieties possessing both a good level of resistance against ECB as well as good agronomic characteristics. This approach not only allows the identification of genetic markers associated with ECB resistance, but also an efficient application of marker-assisted selection with a short-term transfer of research outcomes to commercial maize cultivation. To warrant a sustainable resistance breeding also genetic resources from non-adapted materials are tested for their suitability to deployment in local breeding programs: the mid-term objective is thereby to combine different resistance mechanisms from adapted and non-adapted materials while maintaining an overall good agronomic performance.

The project involves a close collaboration between the Chair of Plant Breeding; TUM, the seed company KWS Saat AG and the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL).