Plant breeding – a future solution with great potential

At Lantm?nnen, we work to increase productivity and profitability in Swedish agriculture while reducing the climate footprint according to Lantm?nnen’s vision for Future Farming.

The timeline for transforming agriculture is short – only 26 harvests remain until 2050, when Lantm?nnen’s goal is for Swedish agriculture to achieve climate neutrality. Considering the industry, this is a short time, and it’s not always easy to change farming practices where the planning horizon is long. However, with plant breeding, it is possible. In Sval?v lies Lantm?nnen’s new Future Farm and plant breeding facility.

Since October 2023, Desireé B?rjesdotter has been Lantm?nnen’s head of plant breeding with the task of scaling up the investment in Sval?v. Desireé explains that at Future Farm Sval?v, through a new advanced setup and equipment, they can now streamline the plant breeding process and develop new varieties with better traits and yield than before.

“Our investment in integrating genomic selection and speed breeding into traditional plant breeding opens up exciting opportunities, and in combination, we get the best of several worlds.”

Genomic selection is a relatively new plant breeding method that has started to be used more and more. Briefly, the method involves identifying genetic markers and their connection to various traits when making selections. The process with the development of crossing parents is accelerated, improving the base. The information from DNA sequencing then helps plant breeders combine the crossing parents. With speed breeding in growth chambers, there is the opportunity for multiple growing generations per year.

“During the winter of 2023–2024, we have increased activities in our nine growth chambers, where we are using the new methodology on spring wheat, oats, barley, winter wheat, and triticale.”

The mission for Future Farm Sval?v is to develop competitive varieties, i.e., varieties that work in practice, which is why they must also be rigorously tested in the growing area. Selection in field trials over several seasons is therefore still a very important part of the development work. Lantm?nnen’s three Future Farms, Bjertorp, Viken, and Sval?v, offer excellent conditions for this. In addition to the three Future Farms, Lantm?nnen’s trial network includes about 20 locations in Sweden, as well as sites in other countries.

Facts

At Future Farm Sval?v, there are annually about 130 hectares of trials and 50–60 hectares of multiplication. In total, nearly 90,000 plots are sown annually, and the farm manages about 1,400 hectares in total. In 2020, Lantm?nnen established the Future Farm concept with Bjertorp, focusing on crop production. The following year, 2021, another Future Farm, Viken, was designated, focusing on the animal value chain. Future Farm Sval?v was launched in June 2022, focusing on plant breeding.