New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts
Invited paper
Future options and targets for pasture plant breeding in New
Zealand
W. M. Williams
H. S. Easton
C. S. Jones
AgResearch Grasslands Research Centre
Private Bag 11008
Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Abstract Industries based on pastoral farming
have increased their contribution to GDP from 13.5 to 17% since 1990 as
the result of markedly intensified farming practices. In the future, we
predict that this intensification will continue but, at the same time,
there will be an emergence of an efficient, lower-input farming sector
with almost no environmental footprint. Both sectors will require
continuing input by pasture plant breeders. Over the past 20 years,
development of pasture cultivars has become totally industry funded,
with support from Crown funding for basic research. There have been
several key advances in pasture plant breeding including new methods
for using exotic germplasm and secondary gene-pools, modification of
grass-endophyte associations, breeding for specific environments and
the successful adoption of international breeding programmes. The
emergence of genomics, marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genetic
modification (GM) offer considerable promise for future development of
pasture cultivars. Future grass breeding, aided by MAS and GM of both
plants and endophytes, will place strong emphasis on feeding value for
optimal animal performances, especially in intensive systems. There
will also be development of grass types adapted to efficient,
lower-input farming systems that will have minimal environmental
impacts. White clover breeding has had a period of unprecedented input
built on a strong foundation of knowledge and germplasm. For intensive
agriculture, future breeding will emphasise disease and pest
resistance, improved feed quality, seed production and the development
of hybrid cultivars. For lower-input sustainable systems, breeding will
aim to broaden the adaptation of clover to semi-arid and other marginal
environments. This will involve increasing use of related clover
species in interspecific hybrids, and selection for improved phosphate
efficiency, N-fixation and drought tolerance. DNA technologies will
provide an increasingly valuable contribution to these products but the
predominant effort will involve plant breeding methods that recombine
and select whole genomes. New Zealand farming is based on a small
number of pasture plant species and, despite the expanded use of the
herbs chicory and plantain, this number has reduced with
intensification. It is predicted that some expansion of the species
base will be needed in future to cope with climate warming and the
development of a sustainable low-input farming sector. In particular,
subtropical grasses should be investigated more thoroughly along with
ways of enabling (perhaps new) legumes to be used with them. Despite a
relatively enlightened germplasm introduction programme, the germplasm
base of most pasture species is inadequate and requires continued
effort to locate and import new materials from diverse international
sources. International research networks have been developed in recent
years and these will increasingly contribute to future pasture plant
breeding progress. The current biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and
New Organisms regulatory environment is not conducive to timely
research and innovation on new species for agriculture and needs
reconsideration by law makers.
Keywords forage quality; feed value; genetic
modification; germplasm; grass breeding; grass endophytes; legume
breeding; marker assisted selection; pasture; plant breeding
A07026; Online publication date 24 May 2007 Received 13 April 2007;
accepted 14 May 2007
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2007, Vol. 50:
223—248
0028—8233/07/5002—0223 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2007
PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality
(900K) | screen-quality (516K)
This year's abstracts |
Journal home page |
All abstracts |
Publishing home page
