Denmark
November 4, 2020

Plant growth faces great challenges in the future. Climate changes already impacts agriculture and green areas significantly. The need for robust and drought tolerant crops and turf grasses has never been bigger.

Christian Sig Jensen Head of Biotech at DLF: “Today we have a strong portfolio of drought tolerant varieties and by utilizing the RadiMax facility we are able to make it even stronger in the future.” 
 

Danish scientists and plant breeders work hard to develop new crops with deeper roots that will help stressed plant production in the future. A one-of-a-kind research project and facility, named RadiMax, took off in 2016. RadiMax is a cooperation between DLF, three Danish Universities, and three other partners. It comprise a screening facility located at Copenhagen University and a high performance computer cluster placed at Aarhus University.

The screening facility consists of four v-shaped pits, in which plants will only receive irrigation from the bottom, which ends at 3 meters depth. Mobile tents ensures that the crops will receive no rain during the drought tests. Each pit has a capacity for 150 plant rows of 10 m. plants standing in the middle of the pit will have to root down to 3 m in order to get water. “So, by measuring the biomass above ground we get a very good indication on the root system below” says Christian.

The facility is also equipped with Plexiglas tubes that run under each plant row down to the bottom. Multispectral cameras will record the root growth at several time points during growth and during stress. “This information tells us how fast each breeding line will establish itself after sowing and how it will respond to a sudden climatic change.”

All plant material going into the screening facility will be subject to DNA profiling. Screening results and DNA profiles will then be analyzed at the computer cluster to generate genomic selection models, which breeders will use to predict rooting depth on new breeding material.

Spring drought, a relatively new phenomenon in Northern Europe caused by climate changes, is one of the challenges a project like RadiMax can help us meet. At DLF we have used the RadiMax facility to identify the varieties, which are most resistant to spring drought within each species. We have gained new knowledge about current varieties and species, but also knowledge that can be used to develop even stronger and more resistant deep rooted varieties going forward.

Website: http://www.dlf.com/

Published: November 4, 2020