Agricultural Technologies WoGr

The EPSO Board decided last year to constitute a WoGr to call attention to how the science that its members are producing may have an impact on agriculture. Agriculture will have to meet important demands in the near future. The production of sufficient, safe and healthy food for an increasing human population is a huge challenge. But this production also has to meet the need for a reduced impact of agriculture in a changing environment.

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Everyone working in plant biology is aware of the significant advances in our knowledge of plant development, interactions of plants with other organisms — particularly pathogens, and the control of metabolic pathways. New methodologies are being developed to study plants both at molecular and cellular levels and as whole organisms or populations in the field. We are convinced that these methods and the information that we are obtaining from them will have, sooner or later, significant effects on agriculture. Agriculture has always been based on the best technologies available at a given moment. For instance, recent research on plant genetics has shown the genetic basis of the selection of species and variants that led to domestication of present crops. Plants were among the first species selected for the studies that led to the birth of genetics and during the last century plant breeding provided the basis for the present levels of food production. It is also clear that other technologies provided fertilisers, pesticides, allowed the irrigation of new lands and the mechanisation of agriculture. A number of technologies are already having an impact in plant breeding:

• Molecular markers are already being used routinely for many crop species by public and private breeders.
• Sequences of the main cultivated plants are becoming available and resequencing of varieties is being used to obtain collections of polymorphic sequences that allow massive genotyping and the discovery and use of complex genetic characters.
• Knowledge of pathways that control metabolism and development and generate resistance to pathogens is providing genes that may be useful to produce new variability through transformation.
• Methods for phenotyping are also being developed based on image analysis. They may become useful to follow the state of crops in the field helping farmers to take decisions.

Members:
Eva-Mari Aro, Turku Univ., FI
Michel Caboche, INRA, FR
Josef Gloessl, BoKu, AT
Wilhlem Gruissem, ETH Zurich, CH
Frank Hartung & Joachim Schiemann, JKI, DE
Heribert Hirt, INRA, FR
Maurice Moloney, RRes-Roth, UK
Pere Puigdomenech, CRAG, ES
Uli Schurr, Phytosphere Julich, DE
Joachim Schiemann, JKI, DE
Richard Visser, WUR, NL

Contact: Pere Puigdomenech; Maurice Moloney; Joachim Schiemann