SPEEDING UP the plant breeding cycle will come into sharp focus at Cereals 2010, next week, on June 9 and 10, at a farm near Royston, in Cambridgeshire.

Ground-breaking techniques such as using molecular markers and double haploid production will be the new currency for plant breeders wishing to speed up the delivery of new varieties, according to Limagrain UK which will zero in on these at a special innovation centre on its stand (No 313) at the event.

The company says it wants to showcase the high level of technology which is now involved in creating the new varieties which could help farmers to operate more profitably and provide the public with sufficient, affordable food.

Limagrain UK’s plant breeding programme, the largest of its type in the country, uses a combination of traditional techniques and modern biotechnologies. The development of genome mapping is helping to make current programmes wider in their scope and more precise by greatly increasing the plant breeder’s understanding of cereal genetics, together with the structure and behaviour of genomes.

Genetic markers, for example, make the selection process more precise, efficient, quicker and independent of the outside environment by allowing plant breeders to directly examine plant DNA in the laboratory and then use this information to determine whether desired traits are present in a new variety at an early stage.

The company will be exhibiting 52 varieties, covering seven different species, including many new varieties of winter wheat of which were developed using these advanced technologies, including the latest, Invicta, Panorama, Stigg and Gravitas.