E-mail: miko.peter@atk.hun-ren.hu

Hungary’s leading wheat breeding institute, ATK was the first in the country to start specific breeding program for organic agriculture, where new breeding concept had to be also implemented. An effective and low-cost method is to perform selection on the target farm in close cooperation with the farmer, which – in the end – helps to increase quickly the number of winter wheat cultivars (variety or population) suitable for organic farming, that have increasing demand from organic farmers’ side.

ATK had sent its organic-suited winter wheat varieties (Mv) and two multi-parental populations to organic farmers with the aim to start participatory testing (PVS: participatory variety selection) and breeding (PPB: participatory plant breeding) on their farms. These on-farm trials were coordinated by ÖMKi and were run on 5 farms of its on-farm network between 2021 and 2023.

Cultivars were evaluated by farmers during the vegetation periods, while breeders of ATK visited the farms and they discussed the steps of observation, selection and harvest of trials with the farmers. Cultivars examined on un-replicated medium-plots (0.1 ha) were examined also in small-plot (6 m2) replicated trial at one farm. Altogether 19 cultivars were involved in the trial system.

Beside grain yield, quality parameters (protein and gluten contents, Zeleny sedimentation value, test weight) were also analysed using near infrared (NIR) rapid quality measurement. PVS activity of the farmers was intensive resulting in the involvement of a couple of new registered varieties in each new season, while – in the same time – several underperforming cultivars were dismissed.

Most of the Mv varieties had higher grain yield than the populations at each site, while the two organic heterogeneous materials (OHM) showed more stable performance over the years with mostly the highest quality parameters. The younger population (i.e. more diverse), ‘Mv Bio2020 Pop’ showed higher yielding ability than ‘Mv Elit CCP’, while its quality parameters were only slightly lower than that of the other OHM population.

In most of the farms, the variety ‘Mv Pántlika’ has overperformed the trial average regarding most of the measured parameters. This result is in line with that of the Hungarian organic post-registration trial run for 3 years on 7 sites (mostly on-station) showing this variety to have outstanding yield and quality stability over the years.

Based on these results, ATK has already organized the official organic sowing seed production of ‘Mv Pántlika’, and offered ‘Mv Bio2020 Pop’ to more farms, where its adaptation to their cropping conditions could start. The two diverse OHM populations are also part of a PPB program, where 3 organic farmers have made their own positive spike selection in the populations and, after threshing them into bulks, the resulted 6 new subpopulations were examined in small plot trials at two sites.

Regarding plant height and earliness, specific farmer preferences were revealed: most of the farmers selected towards earliness, while one of them selected also for shorter stem and the others for taller plants. Based on the average of the 2 sites, only the subpopulations of the younger population (‘Mv Bio2020 Pop’) could yield more than their original population, especially at one site this yield gain was 18.1%. These results were presented in farm days and downloadable as a part of ECOBREED Participatory Trial Bulletins (www.ecobreed.eu).

The research is supported by the TKP2021-NKTA-06 Hungarian national grant, and has received funding also from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 771367 (ECOBREED).