A £2.5m, three-year project bringing the first precision-bred oilseed rape onto commercial farms in Europe has been launched this week, marking a major step towards rebuilding the UK's most important break crop.

The project, Light Leaf Spot Enhancing Resistance And reducing Susceptibility with EDiting (LLS-ERASED), is led by BOFIN Farmers and funded through Defra's Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. It brings together farmers, plant breeders, crop scientists and agronomists to tackle light leaf spot, oilseed rape's most damaging disease, using precision breeding alongside new disease-management tools.

Light leaf spot has become the number one disease threat to UK oilseed rape, with yield losses estimated to have risen from £94m in 2017 to more than £300m in 2022. Despite widespread fungicide use, control has become increasingly unreliable as pathogen populations evolve and resistance to azole fungicides spreads. At the same time, currently available varieties struggle to offer strong, durable resistance.

LLS-ERASED aims to change that by delivering oilseed rape varieties with significantly reduced susceptibility to light leaf spot, developed using precision-breeding techniques that accelerate the introduction of beneficial traits without introducing foreign DNA. Crucially, the project will move these traits beyond the laboratory and into farmer-led field trials on commercial farms, supported by real-time disease forecasting and decision-support tools.

"This project is game-changing for farmers," says LLS-ERASED project lead Tom Allen-Stevens of BOFIN Farmers.

"It will put precision-bred oilseed rape technology on to their farms for the first time across Europe. This is combined with risk forecasting and a new decision support tool that will bring growers effective disease control that is truly risk-based and data-driven. That is the reboot the industry needs, and that is what will help reverse the decline in the crop's planted area."

At the heart of the project is a newly identified plant susceptibility gene. By switching off this gene using precision breeding, researchers have shown it is possible to reduce the ability of the light leaf spot pathogen to infect the crop, offering a more durable form of protection than traditional resistance genes that pathogens can quickly overcome.

The science is being led by John Innes Centre and the University of Hertfordshire, working alongside ADAS and Scottish Agronomy to integrate the new trait into practical, farm-ready disease-management strategies. A consortium of leading UK and European oilseed rape breeders is involved in developing the disease-forecasting and testing material in elite commercial backgrounds. UK Agri-Tech Centre is overseeing project delivery and integration, supporting effective collaboration across partners and ensuring outputs remain focused on adoption, scalability and real-world impact.

A key element of the project is collaboration with US-based Cibus, whose Rapid Trait Development System™ (RTDS®) allows precise, transgene-free edits to be introduced directly into elite breeding lines, dramatically shortening the time needed to bring new traits to market.

"I am really excited to move our resistant material from the laboratory to field scale trials to see how it performs in a real-world setting," says LLS-ERASED technical lead Dr Rachel Wells of John Innes Centre.

"Precision Breeding offers us an excellent opportunity to develop material to combat our pests and pathogens while supporting sustainable farming. Developing a trusted pipeline to streamline the process from research to variety release will be invaluable for crop improvement. Bringing this work together in an integrated pest management package looking at multiple, combined solutions, is the future of crop protection."

For airborne diseases like light leaf spot, information on timing of pathogen spore release and virulence in pathogen populations is essential for effective disease control, adds Yongju Huang, Professor of plant pathology at University of Hertfordshire. "Combined with host resistance information about the pathogen, this project will develop an evidence-based real-time decision support system for farmers to achieve effective disease control and reduce the reliance on chemicals."

Alongside new varieties, LLS-ERASED will deliver a farmer-led delivery platform designed to support the adoption of precision-bred crops. This includes a new disease-management tool combining weather data, pathogen monitoring and on-farm trial results to guide fungicide use more accurately, reducing unnecessary applications while protecting yield.

"The project offers a well-timed opportunity to focus on improving the control of light leaf spot, and the field-based guidance available," comments Dr Faye Ritchie, technical director at ADAS. "Farmer collaboration and knowledge is essential to build effective disease management tools and IPM testing protocols that are practical and cost-effective."

Farmers will play a central role in LLS-ERASED through on-farm trials across England, feeding results directly into a grower-led knowledge-exchange network. The approach is designed not only to bring the first precision-bred oilseed rape varieties to commercial farms, but also to establish a pipeline for future traits. This will include resistance to other diseases and pests such as cabbage stem flea beetle, which is widely reported as a major limiting factor for UK oilseed rape growers.

"By combining precision breeding with integrated disease management and farmer-led testing, the project positions the UK at the forefront of efforts to rebuild oilseed rape production in a more resilient, sustainable way," says BOFIN's Tom Allen-Stevens.

"What's more, building on similar precision-breeding grower-led platforms, it establishes the UK as a world leader in the technology and an on-farm testbed for future traits. This has potential benefits for farm profitability, pesticide reduction and food security, not just for the UK, but across Europe, as the EU moves towards greater acceptance of new genomic techniques."