Prof. Anders S. Carlsson/ Anders.carlsson@slu.se

Head of Department of Plant Breeding, SLU

Research at Department of Plant Breeding, SLU in Alnarp

Nov 2018

SLU develops the understanding and sustainable use and management of biological natural resources.

This is achieved by research, education and environmental monitoring and assessment, in collaboration with the surrounding community.

Vision SLU is a world-class university in the fields of life and environmental sciences.

Mission statement

SLU is a university with a nationwide presence, its largest campuses being at Alnarp, Skara, Umeå and Uppsala. SLU has a unique profile, focused on areas of strategic importance to society – nationally and globally.

SLU nationwide

• Agriculture and horticulture • Landscape planning • Food production • Nature conservation • Forestry and wood processing • Fisheries and aquaculture • Veterinary medicine and livestock

husbandry

We create and integrate knowledge about production, the environment, and animal and human health and quality of life, combining scientific excellence with competence in application-oriented issues. From: SLU’s strategy 2017–2020

Our special strength is …

SLU’s Ranking

Center for University Rankings out of 26 000 higher education institutions SLU ranks as: • Number 1 in Forest research • Number 5 in Soil science • Number 7 in Veterinary medicine • Number 7 in Biodiversity studies

QS Top Universities ranking for Agriculture & Forestry 1) Wageningen 2) Davis 3) Cornell 4) SLU 5) Berkeley

Times Higher Education Number 9 internationally among smal universities (< 4000 students)

SLU Organisation

Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation

Internal audit University Board

Departments and units

Administration

Library

Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Crop Production

Science

Faculty of Natural Resources and

Agricultural Sciences

Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal

Science

Faculty of Forest Sciences

University Animal Hospital

SLU Holding AB

Vice-Chancellor

Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production

Department of Plant Breeding

Department of Plant Protection

Biology

Department of Biosystems and

Technology

Department of Work Science, Business

Economics & Environmental

Psychology

Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and

Crop Production

Department of Landscape

Architecture, Planning and Management

Department of Stad och Land

SLU Campus Alnarp

Department of Plant Breeding at SLU Ca. 75 colleagues

(incl. about. 25 PhD students (many on fellowships) 15 technical personnel

35 junior & senior researchers) Head of Department: Prof. Anders S. Carlsson anders.carlsson@slu.se

Deputy Head: Dr. Mariette Andersson mariette.andersson@slu.se

Three divisions with their subject areas

Pre Harvest

Post Harvest

Plant properties: Division of Plant breeding Lead by Prof. Rodomiro Ortiz Division of Agricultural plant quality Lead by Prof. Eva Johansson Division of Plant biotechnology Lead by Assoc. Prof. Per Hofvander

•Agricultural Plant breeding Lead by Prof. Rodomiro Ortiz

•Horticultural Plant breeding Lead by Dr. Kimmo Rumpunen

•Agricultural plant quality Lead by Prof. Eva Johansson

•Horticultural plant quality Lead by Prof. Marie Olsson

•Plant biotechnology Lead by Assoc. Prof. Per Hofvander

Subject areas:

Division Plant Breeding Prof. Rodomiro Ortiz (agriculture) Dr. Kimmo Rumpunen (horticulture)

• Diversity • Host plant resistance

• Plant breeding

pre-breeding ca. 400 wild species in the gene pool cultivation

harvest

product

• Stress tolerance • Quality

What you start with define to a great extent the end-product! How do you pick the starting material when the gene pool practically is unknown?

Focus areas

Division for Plant Product Quality

Prof. Eva Johansson (agriculture) Prof. Marie Olsson (horticulture) Eva.johansson@slu.se marie.olsson@slu.se

• Content and composition of different component in crops and their relation to increased quality in the product • Proteins • Fiber • Vitamines, minerals, antioxidants and other nutritional components

• Food waste / production losses in the primary production and duringn

transport, making use of side streams for food applications • Use of plant bio rawmaterial for material applications • Storage diceases and diceases in fruit and vegetables

Focus areas

Research on accumulation of storage nutrients in plants focusing on Oil / Protein / Starch and their use in food, feed and biobased materials. Research questions includes storage nutrients quantity and quality as well as what genetic factors determines the flow of organic carbon molecules into storage nutrients. A wide range of techniques within biotechnology are used.

Division of Plant Biotechnology

Associate Professor Per Hofvander Per.hofvander@slu.se

Research can be divided into three areas: 1) Basic research.

Plant lipid biochemistry and molecular biology

2) Methods. To develop and improve methods for tissue culture, transformation and regeneration is a corner stone for the applied research.

3) Applied research projects.

Focus

Department of Plant Breeding

Funding and Longterm Research projects

Research councils

Government funding

Industry

Develop crops for future cultivation in Mid- and North Sweden – Cultivar development of primarily apple, black currants and potatoes.

Etc..

Future oil crops (OCF) - Research program that provides the prerequisites for developing

new oil crops that produce raw materials for the future chemical industry

Domestiation of Field Cress, from a weed to an undersown oil crop.

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60

Income (%) Statsanslag

Intäkter ikonkurrensmed andraforskare

Examples

Applied Plant Breeding Activities

Plant Breeding/Cultivar development:

• Apple (Taste, health-promoting chemical compounds, processing traits, storage parameters, resistance)

Cultivars released in recent years: Frida, Agnes, Trulsa, Lovisa, Folke, Henrik Åkesson och Gratia • Black currant (Health-promoting chemical compounds, taste, mechanical

harvesting, resistance, organic production) Recently released cultivar: Petter (in 2013)

• Sea buckthorn (adaptation to local climate, sweetness, health topics, yield, crop quality, rancidity) Recently released cultivars: Svenne and Lotta (in 2011), Sol, Idun, Fenja, Eir (in 2012) and Torun (in 2013)

• Potato (Resistance, taste, yeild, Qualtiy)

SLU eco-friendly potato breeding with crop wild relatives and cultigens

Potato diversity from the Andes

Susceptible cv. : Resistant bred-clone

Late blight resistance breeding

Newly potato hybrids with desired traits

Main focus Breed new potato cultivars, especially for resistance to late blight and brown rot Rationale The fungus attacks the foliage (leaf blight) and can also spread to potatoes (brown rot). Host plant resistance effective alternative to fungicides that minimize attacks Methods Cross breeding, Phenomics, GWAS, Testing of quality traits including sensory testing Source: rodomiro.ortiz@slu.se

Internationell outlook

Integrating plant genomics with conventional

breeding to enhance the quality and productivity of major crops in

Ethiopia

Germplasm enhancement through genomics 5 PhD students from AAU (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)

Finger millet in acid soils

Sorghum in drought-prone sites

Durum wheat

Noug oil + yield

Durum wheat grain yield + quality

Ethiopia mustard oil

AAU supervisors: Kassahun Tesfaye, Tileye Feyissa, Anteneh Tesfaye SLU supervisors: Anders S. Carlsson, Mulatu Geleta, Li-Hua Zhu, Rodomiro Ortiz

- Isolate novel enzymes from different extremophilic microorganisms, characterize the enzymes, and clone the genes for further improvement - Screen industrially important biocatalysts employing metagenomics to access a large fraction of the genetic pool in extreme habitats of Ethiopia - Development of different expression systems for efficient production of selected enzymes - Scale up enzyme production and evaluate the enzymes at application conditions in collaboration with local industries

Novel catalysts from extremophiles 5 PhD students from AAU (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)

AAU supervisor: Amare Gessesse

SLU supervisors: Eva Johansson, Anders S. Carlsson, Aakash Chawade

SLU-AAU: Improving the oil seed crop noug (Guizotia abysinnica) through the utilization of genetic resources in Ethiopia

R&T UDSM-SLU Avocado diversity in Tanzania

Sida R&T UMSS-SLU Cochabamba, Bolivia

on Festuca (grass), Tomato and postharvest + several other projects

Next Generation Breeding of East African Highland Bananas – The Main Staple of

African Great Lakes

International Partnership on sweet potato

Prof Rodomiro Ortiz

Mozambique

Developing a new oil crop by domestication of field cress (Lepidium campestre) using

conventional approaches

Contacts for more information: Mulatu.Geleta.Dida@slu.se

Field cress Lepidium campestre

• It shares the Brassicaceae family with Brassica & Arabidopsis

Domestication of field cress (Lepidium campestre)

• 2n=2x=16 • biennial • winter hardy • potential for high seed yield • industrial quality oil

• suitable as under-sown crop • It serves as

cover/catch crop during the first year (autumn/ winter)

• and harvested as an oil crop the second year

• Pod shattering • Seed yield • Oil content • Synchronous maturity • Seed dormancy • Perenniality • Pathogen resistance

Major traits targeted

. Major traits targeted for breeding : – Pod shattering, Oil content, synchronous maturity, seed yield and perenniallity

• Pod shattering: – Pod-shatter resistant breeding lines that lose less than 10% of their seeds are developed (wild type genotypes loose more than 90% of their seeds). The resistant lines as good as rapeseed

• Oil content: – In some breeding lines, oil content has been increased by up to 35% (from 20% to about 27%)

• Synchronous maturity: – Few perfect synchronously maturing breeding lines have been developed

• Seed yield: – During yield trial in 2015/2016, up to 4.5 t/ha per breeding line under insufficient rain fall condition

• Perenniality – Perennial breeding lines have been developed through interspecific hybridization between Lepidium campestre and L. heterophyllum

Non-GM based breeding of Lepidium campestre and developing its genomic tools and resources Results achieved

. Different approaches have been used to develop genomic tools and resources • RAD-Sequencing produced:

– More than 190000 DNA sequences (117-567 bp) • used to develop 1700 microsatellite markers

– About 90000 SNPs – 9K SNP chip developed and used to genotype 1200 samples

• For GWAS and QTL mapping

• Genotyping by Sequencing (GBS) produced – About 126000 SNPs

• QTL mapping underway

• Whole genome sequencing accomplished – Genome size = 533 Mbp

• Genetic linkage map developed – contains 10,302 contigs and 1044 SNPs

• In addition 30 genes coding for desirable traits have been identified through comparative genomic analysis of Lepidium and Arabidopsis genomes

Non-GM based breeding of Lepidium campestre and developing its genomic tools and resources Results achieved

Example of Biomaterial research

Eva johansson Eva.johansson@slu.se William (Bill) Newson Bill.Newson@slu.se ; Ramune Kuktaite ramune.kuktaite@slu.se

Take advantage of side-streams from different stages of production, including food production, for the production of value-added products to pharma-, food, chemical and packaging industries.

Structures of biomaterials and impact on quality of materials

Byproducts for the optimal use of natural resources

Better structure

More even protein composition

Plant Product Quality

Contacts for more information: Marie.Olsson@slu.se

New healthy products from food waste in the primary production

Marie Olsson, Professor Marie.olsson@slu.se Plant Product Quality Division Dept. Plant Breeding, SLU

Large pile of cale waste outside the grower’s barn

Broccoli leaves and stem – ~ 2/3 of the plant is left in the field

Processed products; ingredients (powder and puré)

Health value – mild process technology + chemical analyses (HPLC-MS: glucosinulates, carotenoids, vitamin K, phenolics)

Increased profitability for growers

Climate-smart through better resource efficiency

Marie Olsson, Professor, Plant Product Quality Division Dept. Plant Breeding, SLU

New sustainable methods for improving fruit quality and decreasing storage losses

• New methods for reducing pathogen attack and storage losses in organic fruit cultivation (disease spreading, natural pesticides, disinfection of facilities)

• Improving fruit storability by new technology for deciding maturity

• Evaluating new storage techniques; DCA (dynamic controlled

atmosphere), and RQ (respiratory quotient)-DCA in relation to efficacy for domestic cultivars

Storage diseases: Neofabraea sp. and Penicillium expansum

Genetic resources

Sustainable Crop Genetic Enhancement

• Identifying a useful character • Manipulating its genetic variation • Putting genes into a usable form • DNA markers monitor chromosomal changes from, and as aid for selection • Genetic engineering enhances useful variation if not available in crop gene pools

Em. Prof. Roland von Bothmer

Prof. Arnulf Merker ✝

Example of Plant Biotechnology Research

To increase the availability and quality of proteins in crops such as quinoa, amarant and buckwheat and in legumes such as lupine, faba bean, chickpeas and lentils. • 19 partner institutions from13 countries (Coordinator is Univ. of Copenhagen) • Crop production, protein extraction and fractionation, food processing, market analysis, sustainability analysis SLU’s activities • Comparative studies of important genes for the protein properties for further use as markers in breeding and quinoa field bean • Characterization of protein structures in processed products from different crops

EU project Protein2Food

Photo: Å. Grimberg (Åsa Grimberg Asa.Grimberg@slu.se ; Ramune Kuktaite ramune.kuktaite@slu.se Anders Carlsson Anders.Carlsson@slu.se ; Eva Johansson eva.johansson@slu.se , SLU)

Improvement of potato proteins • Potato tubers contain approx. 2% proteins

• These proteins have a very high nutritional value (essential amino acids)

• Starch producers take care of protein from side streams

• Low yield, proteins are sensitive to elements in the process e.g. temperature

• Glycoalkaloids in the sidestream

Targeted improvements

Raise the denaturing temperature for potato protein (patatin)

Reduce glyco alkaloid levels to ensure food quality

Targeted mutations with CRISPR-Cas9

Mariette Andersson Mariette.Andersson@slu.se Research group of Eva Johansson

Optimized potato amylopectin starch

Increased storage stability, reduced starch retrogradation

Food applications:

soups, creams, sauces

Industrial applications:

paper, textiles, glue

Targeted mutations with CRISPR-Cas9

Per Hofvander Per.Hofvander@slu.se ; Mariette Andersson Mariette.Andersson@slu.se

Low glycemic index (GI) Amylose starch breaks down slowly in the body and gives a more even blood sugar curve and longer satiety (diabetes, weight control) Resistant starch (RS)? Resistant starch (RS) Amylose has prebiotic effects, stimulates the growth of good bowel bacteria that can reduce the risk of stomach / colon cancer and reduce cholesterol levels Bioplastics and other bio-based materials Amylose starch has beneficial properties for renewable plastics with good properties for gas and fat barriers.

Hich amylos potato starch

Targeted mutations with CRISPR-Cas9

Mariette Andersson Mariette.Andersson@slu.se

Research groups of Roger Andersson, SLU and Eva Johansson, SLU Roger.andersson@slu.se eva.johansson@slu.se

Development of Crambe abyssinica into an industrial crop producing tailor made industrial oils using gene technology

Supported by EU-ICON, FORMAS and SSF as well as TC4F Source: Li-Hua.Zhu@slu.se Anders.carlsson@slu.se Ida.lager@slu.se

Extra high erucic acid: increased from 60 in WT to 73% in GM-line by regulating three key genes involved in fatty acid biosynthesis. Wax ester production: up to 50% of wax esters in the seed oil in GM-lines compared to zero in WT by overexpressing 3 jojoba wax synthesis genes. High oleic acid: increased from 15% in WT to 80% in GM-line by regulating 2 key genes involved in the seed oil biosynthesis.

Li et al. Plant Biotech J. 2012, 2016 Guan et al. Plant Biotech J., 2013 Zhu et al. Sci. Rep. 2016.

Field trials showed reduced seed setting and seed oil for both types of GM lines. For the wax lines, reduced germination.

Not a food crop (60% erucic acid) / No outcross with other oil crops or wild relatives in northern Europe / Reasonable oil yield per hectare (same as spring rape) / Already in production as an agricultural crop

Domestication of Lepidium campestre (field cress) as new crop using biotechnology (GM)

Lepidium campestre

Traits targeted: Oil quality Oil content Pod shattering Glucosinolates Dicease resistance Breeding techniques used: • Gene transformation • Targeted mutations with CRISPR-Cas9 • Cross breeding Li-Hua Zhu Li-Hua.Zhu@slu.se

Two-year, cold-resistant, Intercropping with cereal grains, reduced nutrient leakage

Ivarson et al. BMC Plant Biol., 2013 Ivarson et al. Plant Cell Rep. 2016 Ivarson et al. Front. Plant. Sci. 2017

Human hemoglobin production in plants for being used as blood substitute

Contact: Professor Li-Hua Zhu Li-Hua.Zhu@slu.se

Understanding molecular mechanisms underlying bud dormancy in apple

Plant based insect pheromones from Camelina sativa oil

• A very large group of insect pheromones are modified fatty acids

• We have modified the oil quality of Camelina sativa

• Field trials in the USA and Sweden for production of oil seeds

• Extracted oil is derivatized to specific pheromone mixtures

• Application tests in China in 2017

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Field trapping experiment 2017

Pheromone mix

Crop: Brassicaceae

Z11-16:Ald

Z11-16:OAc

Z11-16:OH

Target pests: diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella

Per Hofvander per.hofvander@slu.se

Pre-breeding for disease resistance in wheat

Contacts for more information: Assoc. Prof. Aakash Chawade Aakash.chawade@slu.se

Firuz Odilbekov Alexander Koc Dhananjay Kumar PI. Aakash Chawade Assoc. Prof.

Pre-breeding for disease resistance in wheat • Wheat germplasm characterization for resistance to Septoria

tritici blotch (STB) disease

• Understanding plant pathogen interactions by molecular

analysis

• Marker development by GWAS and QTL analysis for STB and

yellow rust diseases

STB

Imaging roots and shoots in greenhouse Custom-built low-cost

imaging setup To study early vigour of roots

and shoots Marker development for

early vigour

Low-cost imaging in the field Aim is to make selections of breeding

lines by imaging Custom built phenotyping cart Proximal phenotyping with RGB,

Infrared and 3D sensors Remote sensing with drones

Carbon Flow into Storage Nutrients

Contacts for more information: Per.hofvander@slu.se Åsa.Grimberg@slu.se Anders.Carlsson@slu.se

Oat grain endosperm (Avena sativa)

Nutsedge tuber parenchyma (Cyperus esculentus)

Regulation of oil accumulation in model plant storage tissues

Up to 18% dw oil Up to 30% dw oil

Conductor genes coding for transcription factors directing the expression of a specific set of genes

Wt C1. Transcription profiling

• Transcriptome, eight timepoints of yellow nutsedge available since before • Transcriptome, one time point of purple nutsedge produced and bioinformatically processed • Comparative transcriptome studies

Activities Cyperus tubers

C. esculentus 35% starch dw 30% oil dw

C. rotundus 35% starch dw No oil

Characterisation of AsWRI1 in tobacco leaves

Differentially expressed genes in tobacco leaves expressing WRI1 homologs from five different species. (Grimberg et al. BMC Plant Biology, 2015)

(Photo Å. Grimberg)

Oil (TAG;triacylglycerol) content in tobacco leaves expressing WRI1.

2.2% oil

Wrinkled and ‘collapsed’ phenotype of AsWRI1-wheat

(Photos P. Snell, M. Wilkinson, T3 grains)

Maturity Late developmental stage

Null

Hom,12 ins

SLU Open Lab Food, Alnarp

Contacts for more information: Gun.Hagström@slu.se

Open Lab Food Alnarp The purpose is to give the student an idea of:

• what is good quality for vegetables, fruits and berry consumed directly by the consumer

• what is good quality for

vegetables, fruits and berry to be further processed by industry and come out as good quality to consumers

Open Lab Food Alnarp

Is a place where researchers, industry, students, consumers and other cluster meet to develop new tasteful, healthy, sustainable cultivated vegetable products?

Thank You