Visitors to Cereals 2015 will be able to journey back in time and discover how 50 years of plant breeding has shaped the varieties grown today – and get a glimpse into the future, too.

Plant breeding experts, including representatives from the British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB) and the Crop Improvement Research Club (CIRC), will be on Stand 902 to discuss the business and science of crop improvement.

The event, taking place on 10–11 June at Boothby Graffoe, sees HGCA exhibit in its new guise as AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds as the division enters the latest chapter in its 50-year history.

Varieties: The spice of life

In 1964, the Plant Varieties and Seeds Act provided a legal framework for the collection of royalties on protected crop varieties. The securing of breeders’ intellectual property helped fund half a century of varietal improvement.

At Cereals 2015, a genetics timeline and heritage variety plots will illustrate how wheat, barley and oat varieties have improved and why previous varieties fell out of favour.

Ellie Marshall, AHDB Research Manager, said: “Cappelle Desprez, for example, dominated the British winter wheat area for 20 years from the mid-1950s.

“It had durable resistance to yellow rust and was widely used by plant breeders during the development of modern wheat varieties.

“In the early 1970s, Maris Huntsman arrived on the scene – offering a 20% yield advantage over Cappelle Desprez, it became the new market leader.”

This is one of many historic examples but the future of varietal improvement will also be brought into focus by CIRC.

Funded to the tune of more than £7m from BBSRC, Scottish Government and 14 industry partners (including AHDB), CIRC has supported 15 basic science projects to address the industry-defined challenges of  ‘higher yields’, ‘healthier crops’, ‘better quality’ and ‘improved roots’ in wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

One project featured, led by the University of Warwick, hopes to show turnip yellows virus the ‘red card’.

Dr Marshall continued: “The research is revealing the genetic diversity within the virus to help breeders combine the best mix of genes to make oilseed rape resistant all forms.”

The exhibit will also look at the methods available to improve the odds of winning the ‘plant breeding lottery’ to help secure the next 50 years of cereals and oilseeds production.

For growers looking to understand a ‘variety’ of plant breeding terms – such as ‘pedigree’, ‘hybrid’, ‘doubled haploid’, ‘marker assisted selection’, ‘transformation’ and ‘genome editing’, the ‘Varieties: The spice of life’ area at Cereals 2015 should not be missed.

hgca.com/cereals