Wheat with Improved Powdery Mildew Resistance (University of Zurich)
Progression of the Project
The first field season was launched in 2014. In March 2019, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) authorised the continuation of the field trials studying new wheat lines for a further five years. In addition, FOEN granted a permit for the release of another set of wheat lines from in March 2021. These lines were already planted in field trials by the University of Zurich before 2019. After 10 years of field trials, the last harvest was carried out in 2023. The monitoring of the former trial areas is still in progress.
Further information
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Protected Site - Site for Field Trials of Genetically Modified Plants
Agroscope is operating a protected field site at the location Reckenholz (Zurich) to enable field experiments with genetically modified plants in Switzerland. The aim of those experiments is to identify the potential and the limitations of green gene technology.
Winter Wheat with Increased Yield Potential (Agroscope)
Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research IPK in Gatersleben (Germany) have developed a genetically modified wheat with altered sugar transport. In greenhouse trials, it showed significant increases in yield compared to the non-transformed control line. Together with the IPK, Agroscope investigated the effect of the genetic modification on the performance of winter wheat under field condition in comparison with conventional winter wheat varieties.
Cereal Diseases
The main focus of phytopathological research on cereals concerns the resistance problems with regard to fungicides and the epidemiology of fungal and virus infections.
Contact University of Zurich
Prof. Beat Keller
Project Head University of Zurich
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
Zollikerstrasse 107
8008 Zurich
Tel.: 044 634 82 11