German National Evaluation Programme for

Plant Genetic Resources (EVA II)

Sarah Sensen

Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (Germany, Bonn)

Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity

Overview

→ Development of EVA II

→ Organisational structure

→ Workflow

→ Composition and management of the

testing collection

→ Information system

→ Strength of EVA II

→ Awareness raising

→ Ideas for a global evaluation network

Development of EVA II

→ Situation before EVA II:

• Huge amounts of genebank (observation) and other evaluation data

were collected for various crops, but data from different sources, test-

conditions or different years cannot be compared (random and

fragmented scores, no standard lines, etc.)

→ Objectives of EVA II:

• Establishment of a network for the evaluation of PGR for wheat and

barley

• Improvement of secundary evaluation on disease resistances with

coordinated and collective evaluation with the same methods and

same standards

• Development of a dynamic information system for data acquisition and

assessment

Organisational structure of EVA II

Expert group• Representatives of

• breeding companies

• Association for Promotion of Private Plant Breeding (GFP)

• scientific partner (JKI and others))

• Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE)

• Meeting 1-2 x per annuum

• Decision on traits and composition of the testing collection

Julius Kuehn

InstituteInstitute for Resistance

Research and Stress

Tolerance

(coordinator)

Association for

the Promotion

of Private Plant

Breeding e.V.

PartnerPrivate Plant

Breeders

(companies)

Cooperation partner

Federal Office for

Agriculture and

FoodPrivileged

guest

1

2

345

6789

1011

1213

14

15

1

2

3

16

4

Partner in thecooperation treaty

→Breeding companies1. Pflanzenzucht SaKa GmbH & Co. KG

2. KWS-LOCHOW GmbH

3. Saaten Union GmbH

4. Limagrain GmbH

5. Dieckmann GmbH & Co. KG

6. SECOBRA Saatzucht GmbH

7. W. von Borries-Eckendorf GmbH & Co. KG

8. Lantmännen SW Seed Hadmersleben GmbH

9. RAGT 2N

10.Nordsaat Saatzuchtgesellschaft mbH

11.Deutsche Saatveredelung AG

12.Saatzucht Josef Breun GmbH & Co. KG

13.Saatzucht Streng-Engelen GmbH & Co. KG

14.Pflanzenzucht Oberlimpurg Dr. Franck

15.Saatzucht Bauer GmbH & Co. KG

16.Syngenta Seeds GmbH

→Scientific institutions1. Julius Kühn-Institut, Quedlinburg (Koordinator)

2. Landesanstalt für Landwirtschaft, Institut für

Pflanzenbau und Pflanzenzüchtung, Freising

3. Landwirtschaftliche Lehranstalten Triesdorf

4. Universität Hohenheim, Landessaatzuchtanstalt

Workflow in EVA II

1. Supply of seeds of interesting genotypes

(selected by the expert group)

2. Multiplication and primary evaluation of the

genotypes (coordinator)

3. Package of the testing collections and sending to

the partners, preparation of the evaluation lists

within the database (coordinator)

4. Cultivation of the testing collections in small-

scale parcels and evaluation of the disease

infection (partners)

5. Documentation of results in excel lists and

upload of the lists (partners)

6. Import in the database and release of the results

for consortium partners only (coordinator)

Management of the assortments

→ Bonitur lists (in Excel) are provided online and can later be imported

automatically online.

→ Import of the genotype data in the multi crop passport descriptor

format (FAO & EURISCO)

Sources of seeds

→ Genebank material (primary evaluation)

• Search in databases (e.g. GRIN)

• Publications

• Genebank collections (e.g. IPK, ICARDA, CIMMYT)

→ Varieties

• Proposals of the partners

• Publications

→ Material from research projects, e.g.

• New resistance genes

• Combination of different resistance genes

Composition of the testing collection

→ Number of genotypes / testing collection / year ~ 50 genotypes

50%

30%

10%

10%

New genotypes

Best genotypes of the previous yearfor anew evaluationGenotypes with inconsistent results

Further genotypes

Assortments Number

Winter wheat 639

Spring wheat 251

Winter barley 412

Spring barley 541

Total 1843

Total number of evaluated genotypes in EVA II (11/2013)

Focus for the testing collection

Year Wheat Barley

2005 Drechslera tritici-repentis (DTR);

Septoria; Fusarium

Physiological leaf spots

2007 Leaf rust Rhynchosporium

2009 DTR (tan blotch) Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV)

2010 Septoria; DTR Leaf rust; Rhynchosporium

2011 Septoria; DTR Leaf rust; Rhynchosporium

2012 Stripe rust BYDV; Rhynchosporium; net blotch

Information system

→ Serves for the acquisition, analyses, provision of

evaluation data

→ Serves for the information flow of the cooperation

partner

→ The acquired results are shared among the

consortium partners for direct use in their respective

breeding programs.

→ After 3 years, the data become freely accessible

(public domain).

→ Partners can search the results by year, crop,

disease or location

Database – search opportunities

http://eva2.jki.bund.de/portal/public/classic/

Database – results

http://eva2.jki.bund.de/portal/public/classic/

Outlook:

Dataflow of German C&E data into other databases

Data in EVA II

Accessib

le

for

EV

A

part

ner

German National Inventory for PGR (PGRDEU)

The European Search Catalogue on PGR (EURISCO)

Genesys

Public

dom

ain

Data format agreed in

ECPGR

Multi Crop Passport

Descriptors

Strength of EVA II

→ Possibility to compare several years (standard reference lines)

→ Possibility to compare several locations (different agro-ecological sites,

agreed sites)

→ Close collaboration of breeders to generate synergies; free exclusive

access to all data in the first 3 years as an incentive (self-interest, no

external funding)

Frequency distribution of the scores

Score1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

0

10

20

30

40

Nu

mb

er

of

Ge

no

typ

es

2002

2003

Winter wheat – Leaf

rust

Awareness raising for EVA II

→ ECPGR Task Force: User Engagement

• Summer 2013, Lorenzo Maggioni (Bioversity), Riccardo

Bocci, Jan Nedelnik, Frank Ordon

• Proposal to extent the EVA II system to Europe in ECPGR

• Improvement of the cooperation between science,

genebanks and users by evaluating genetic resources and

broadening to more traits

• Stronger inclusion of farmers as stakeholders

→ EC Preparatory action for genetic resources

• Proposal to extent the EVA II system to Europe

→ FAO´s Global Partnership Initiative for Plant

Breeding Capacity Building

• Presentation of EVA II

Ideas for a global evaluation network

→ Public-Private-Partnership on the

value addition chain

→ CGIAR centre or the Advanced

Research Institutions as possible

coordinators of the network

→ Partner from developed and

developing countries as well as big

breeding institutions involved in the

network

→ Advantage for all partner to get

comparable evaluation results from

diverse agro-ecological sites

Source: IT/COGIS-1/15/Report

Thank you for your kind attention!