b'PRESSURE ON BREEDERS by these breeding methods fall under the And, while some resistance genes forregulation of the GMO directive 2001/18/various diseases and pests of lettuce areEG. Rijk Zwaan does not include any vari-being incorporated into new varieties on aeties obtained by techniques to which this continual basis, there are now fewer cropdirective is applicable. Of course, we protection products for lettuce farmers.monitor these developments closely, says This makes growing a successful cropHaanstra, and we continue to believe more challenging for them, but also obvi- new technologies like gene editing will ously puts extra pressure on breeders. provide benefits through its use in aca-Zonneveld explains that there isdemic research projects such as the ones growing interest in achieving aphid con- we are involved with.trol through genetics. Several insecticidesBejo Zaden also participates in pro-were very successful in the control ofjects like LettuceKnow, the ILGC-3 project these insects, including neonics, and theand also works closely with GeneTwister. ban of the neonics has resulted in a moreAll its lettuce varieties are non-GMO, and challenging situation for lettuce growers.whilst Veenstra explains that Bejo is rel-Rijk Zwaan customers have requestedatively new in the lettuce business after more disease resistance in lettuce varie- taking over Agrisemen in 2015, it has used ties, especially to Nasonovia and Bremia,existing company infrastructure to ana-to be able to reduce their use of availableAlfonso Garca, Lettuce Breeder. lyse lettuce genetic data. We make use crop protection agents. This also includesSource: Meridiem Seeds of our SNP (single nucleotide polymor-many organic growers, says Schut. phism) platform and are able to discover locations of traits or resistances on the INNOVATION IN BREEDING chromosomes quite rapidly, he explains. Gene editing, which allows for on-de- Bejo has hired two researchers and two mand genetic changes in existing vari- assistants for lettuce only and it is amaz-eties, is under investigation in lettuce.ing what you can do in a few years time.Two examples in lettuce that haveSyngenta Seeds is currently using received recent publicity, reports Visser,molecular markers to accomplish tasks are high-temperature germinating seedssuch as stacking multiple resistances in and non-browning romaine lettuce.one variety. He adds that BASF breeding teamsAt this point, Meridiem is leading are currently working on the develop- an innovative lettuce breeding project ment and implementation of molecularin collaboration with the COMAV of the markers linked to the most importantPolytechnic University of Valencia, sup-disease traits. We are also implement- ported by the Ministry of Science and ing a recurrent genotyping strategyInnovation of Spain. In involves technol-using a high-density genotyping platformogies such as genotyping for the develop-which will allow our team to apply morement of molecular markers linked to genes advanced mapping and selection studiesof interest. Garca adds that pathogen such as genome-wide association map- inoculation protocols have been estab-ping and genomic selection. Roel Veenstra, Crop Research Manager.lished for the selection of lettuce plants In Rijk Zwaans genetics researchSource: Bejo Zaden resistant to diseases. It is also worth men-program, new high-throughput sequenc- tioning a project to obtain double haploid ing technology is providing more insightlines in lettuce, he says, [has shown] into the variation found among its let- very promising results to date.tuces and can be applied in marker-as- For its part, Maraldi is planning a sisted breeding. We are also cooperatingmolecular marker study to accomplish with several lettuce seed companies andthe introgression of new resistance genes researchers in academia on two majorfor pest and diseases and to introduce projects, Schut reports. These arenew traits suitable to unfavourable cli-LettuceKnow with the Universities ofmatic conditions and longer shelf life. At Utrecht, Wageningen and Leiden in theMaraldi, thanks to the development of a Netherlands, and ILGC-3 with Universitywide genetic basis during the last decade, of California-Davis in the U.S. These pro- we are starting a molecular markers pro-jects link plant biology from model cropsject for the deep study of these materials, and high-throughput sequencing withexplains Zaccaria, and to identify genes applied lettuce research. We expect thatof high interest for the breeding activity. all of this will certainly generate a lot ofCurrently our main goal is to introgress breeding progress in the coming decade. new, strong and durable resistance genes Haanstra adds that because somefor Bremia and Fusarium, and later to of these new plant breeding techniquesidentify genes involved in important field have been judged as genetic modifica- stress and commercial traits. We are sure tion techniques by the European CourtOlaf Zonneveld, Global R&D Crop Lead Salads.these new approaches will improve the of Justice in mid-2018, varieties obtainedSource: Syngenta Seeds quality of our breeding program. 22IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'