Cutting-edge plant breeding techniques such as Molecular Markers and Double Haploid production, which are rarely demonstrated in public but enable Limagrain UK to provide farmers with new, more productive varieties, more quickly, will be the focus of a special Innovation Centre on the company’s stand (Number 313) at Cereals 2010. The exhibit is designed to showcase the very high level of technology which is now involved in creating new varieties that help farmers to operate more profitably and provide the public with sufficient, affordable food.

Limagrain UK’s plant breeding programme, the largest of its type in the country, uses a combination of traditional techniques and modern biotechnologies. The development of genome mapping is helping to make current programmes wider in their scope and more precise by greatly increasing the plant breeder’s understanding of cereal genetics, together with the structure and behaviour of genomes.

Genetic markers, for example, make the selection process more precise, efficient, quicker and independent of the outside environment by allowing plant breeders to directly examine plant DNA in the laboratory and then use this information to determine whether desired traits are present in a new variety at an early stage. In addition to significantly reducing the average time taken to breed new varieties and for them to reach the farmer, these techniques now play an essential role in ensuring good end-user grain characteristics and farmer-friendly agronomic performance.

Limagrain UK will be exhibiting 52 varieties covering seven different species, including many new varieties of winter wheat of which were developed using these advanced technologies, including the latest, Invicta, Panorama, Stigg and Gravitas.

Invicta, the highest-yielding Group 3, has excellent agronomic characters and is suitable for biscuit making, distilling, animal feed and export, opening up a wide range of end-market options for soft-wheat growers.

Panorama is the highest-yielding Group 2, a fully-recommended potential bread-making wheat with a very high yield potential, good resistance to lodging and very good resistance to the main foliar diseases.

Gravitas and Stigg are two promising newcomers which are in Recommended List Trials this year.

Stigg, the first variety with a rating of 8 for Septoria tritici to go into Recommended List trials, is a hard textured feed winter wheat with a very high yield potential, particularly in the absence of fungicide, and short, stiff straw.

Gravitas, an HGCA Recommended List candidate for 2010, is a soft textured winter wheat with excellent yield potential, 6% higher than Alchemy with a fungicide treatment. The variety has moderately tall straw, a very good disease resistance profile, including resistance to Wheat Orange Blossom Midge, together with a good specific weight and Hagberg Falling Number, providing potential for distilling, export and animal feed markets.

The latest developments from Limagrain UK in the malting barley sector are the new varieties Vanquish and Concerto.

Vanquish is a winter malting barley with very high yield potential, similar to the feed barley Saffron. With short straw and good all-round disease resistance, including the commonly-occurring strains of Barley Mosaic Virus, it promises malting barley quality and is currently being evaluated by the Institute of Brewing and Distilling (IBD).

Concerto is a very high yielding spring malting barley with good all-round agronomic performance, no significant weaknesses, a high specific weight and very low screenings. Early evaluation suggests that, like Optic, Concerto accumulates grain nitrogen at a low level and has particular malting characteristics which make it highly suitable for both brewing and distilling.