Agronomic Evaluation of Bread Wheat Varieties from Participatory Breeding: A Combination of Performance and Robustness

Abstract

Participatory plant breeding (PPB) is based on the decentralization of selection in farmers' fields and their involvement in decision-making at all steps of the breeding scheme. Despite the evidence of its benefits to develop population varieties adapted to diversified and local practices and conditions, such as organic farming, PPB is still not widely used. There is a need to share more broadly how the different programs have overcome scientific, practical, and organizational issues and produced a large number of positive outcomes. Here, we report on a PPB program that started on bread wheat in France in 2006 and has achieved a range of outcomes, from the emergence of new organization among actors, to specific experimental designs and statistical methods developed, and to populations varieties developed and cultivated by farmers. We present the results of a two-year agronomic evaluation of the first population varieties developed within this PPB program compared to two commercial varieties currently grown in organic agriculture. We found that several PPB varieties were of great agronomic interest, combining relatively good performance even under the most favorable conditions of organic agriculture and good robustness, i.e., the ability to maintain productivity under more constraining conditions. The PPB varieties also tended to show a good temporal dynamic stability and appeared promising for the farmers involved.

Genetic Diversity and Stability of Performance of Wheat Population Varieties Developed by Participatory Breeding

“…Results showed that commercial varieties were less stable across farms in terms of grain yield than PPB populations, which highlights the fact that homogeneous commercial varieties are sensitive to poor conditions but valorize better fertile environments [46]. This productivity stability of PPB populations seems to be associated with greater stability in tillering capacity rather than in grain filling as indicated by the more stable grain number per m 2 .…”

“…In France, this has resulted in an increased use of variety mixtures in recent years [64] by farmers in organic as well as in conventional farming. In another approach studying stability on the same experiment [46] using dynamic indicators (Wricke's ecovalences), it was found that all PPB populations were more stable over farms than commercial lines for GY, and some of them were more stable for PC than the two commercial lines. All PPB populations were also more stable in time than the two commercial lines for PC.…”

“…To fill this gap, a two-year experiment was conducted to evaluate ten populations developed within the wheat PPB program, thereafter called PPB populations, compared with two commercial pure line varieties. An agronomic evaluation was carried out (for more information see Goldringer et al, [46]). The design is close to a reciprocal transplant experiment since some of the populations evaluated were tested both on their farm of origin and on other farms.…”

SHiNeMaS : A web tool dedicated to seed lots history, phenotyping and cultural practices

“…The aims of this program are (i) to study on-farm management of crop diversity [3], (ii) to develop population-varieties adapted to organic and low-inputs agriculture in the context of a participatory plant breeding program involving a collective of farmers, facilitators and researchers [4], [5] and, (iii) to co-develop methods and tools such as data management tools, experimental designs and statistical methods adapted to on-farm experiments [6,7], in order to foster genetic and social innovations. In this context, participants have (i) developed, evaluated, and measured at global and individual levels new population-varieties [6,8,9] and (ii) fostered seed and knowledge circulation among participants in a large network of farms (more than 100 farms in 2018). This program therefore produces a lot of data, and, in particular, relational information between seed lots (trace-ability) that can be represented as a network (figure 1).…”

SHiNeMaS : A web tool dedicated to seed lots history, phenotyping and cultural practices

“…The aims of this program are (i) to study on-farm management of crop diversity [3], (ii) to develop population-varieties adapted to organic and low-inputs agriculture in the context of a participatory plant breeding program involving a collective of farmers, facilitators and researchers [4], [5] and, (iii) to co-develop methods and tools like data management tools, experimental designs and statistical methods adapted to on-farm experiments [6,7], in order to foster genetic and social innovations. In this context, participants have (i) developed, evaluated, and measured at global and individual levels new population-varieties [6,8,9] and (ii) fostered seed and know-how circulation among participants in a large network of farms (more than 100 farms in 2018). This program therefore produces a lot of data, and, in particular, relational information between seed lots (trace-ability) that can be represented as a network (figure 1).…”