15AGRITECHCAT4: Application of innovative plant breeding and phenotyping to reduce the nutrient requirement of forages to reduce the environmental....

Forage crops such as perennial ryegrass and white clover are the major feed of UK livestock and an important component of sustainable ruminant production. Grassland covers 11million ha of the UK landmass of which 1.2million ha is <5 years old, with 325,000ha resown annually with varieties of forage grasses and legumes (Defra). The major emphasis of grassland agriculture has been on increasing dry matter yield, forage quality and animal production. Greater EU regulation means the UK grassland sector is now faced with reducing the environmental impact of production whilst simultaneously improving its production and efficiency. The effective use of nutrients is one of the key components of efficient grassland management, with the application of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) integral to maintaining the productivity of high quality swards. Livestock farmers are being encouraged to produce more from forage, while less predictable fertiliser prices, may act to increase costs. This project will address the challenge of increasing the sustainable intensification of grassland agriculture through applying plant breeding and genomics technologies in parallel with enhanced phenotying technologies, within the NPPC to improve the nutrient use efficiency of perennial ryegrass and white clover varieties.

Fertiliser inputs to grassland depend upon system and management regime. Nitrogen prices are currently £270/t or 78p/kg N. Application rates range widely: a standard range would be 160kg to >204kg N ha/year depending upon stocking rate, concentrate use, manure application and use of forage legumes. Improving the use of N and P in UK grassland systems through targeted plant breeding is a major challenge but also presents a significant opportunity for plant breeders. This project will exploit outcomes of earlier research on perennial ryegrass and white clover that has developed novel genetic resources and breeding technologies that will enable selection for improved nutrient use efficiency in forages, leading to varieties of perennial ryegrass and white clover requiring less N and P per unit of dry matter production, providing an economic benefit to primary producers and environmental benefits. The project will use the National Plant Phenotyping Centre at Aberystwyth University (AU) to analyse the effect of selection on NUE on single plants prior to seed production and evaluation in field trials and validation of the outcomes through optimised nutrient management. The enhanced germplasm developed will be exploited beyond the project (within 5 years of completion) by Germinal Holdings Ltd. (GHL) to produce finished varieties marketed by GHL in UK and overseas, potentially increasing the use of their varieties by 10% (currently GHL supply 30% of UK forage seed market of 10000t).

Forage crops such as perennial ryegrass and white clover are the major feed of UK livestock and an important component of sustainable ruminant production. Grassland covers 11million ha of the UK landmass of which 1.2million ha is <5 years old, with 325,000ha resown annually with varieties of forage grasses and legumes (Defra). Greater EU regulation means the UK grassland sector is now faced with reducing the environmental impact of production whilst simultaneously improving its production and efficiency. The effective use of nutrients is one of the key components of efficient grassland management, with the application of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) integral to maintaining the productivity of high quality swards. Livestock farmers are being encouraged to produce more from forage, while less predictable fertiliser prices, may act to increase costs. This project will address the challenge of increasing the sustainable intensification of grassland agriculture through applying plant breeding and genomics technologies in parallel with enhanced phenotying technologies, within the NPPC to improve the nutrient use efficiency of perennial ryegrass and white clover varieties. This project will exploit outcomes of earlier research on perennial ryegrass and white clover that has developed novel genetic resources and breeding technologies that will enable selection for improved nutrient use efficiency in forages, leading to varieties of perennial ryegrass and white clover requiring less N and P per unit of dry matter production, providing an economic benefit to primary producers and environmental benefits. The project will use the National Plant Phenotyping Centre at Aberystwyth University (AU) to analyse the effect of selection on NUE on single plants prior to seed production. The enhanced germplasm developed will be exploited beyond the project by Germinal Holdings Ltd.

The major beneficiaries of this research will be:
Plant breeding community: N and P efficient ryegrass populations and varieties, additional genetic variations of N and P content and genomically and phenotypically characterised germplasm will be available for use by forage grass and white clover breeders. A number of pre-breeding lines and molecular marker tools will also be available for breeding these traits in future varieties with speed and precision. Breeders of related crop species that share genome synteny with ryegrass and white clover will benefit through opportunities to identify and use orthologous gene loci in their crops.

Livestock sector: This work will also have a significant economic and environmental impact on ruminant production.
Advanced varieties and germplasm will be developed for ryegrass and white clover which will have the best combination of N and P use efficiencies together with other forage quality traits that will deliver environmental and economic benefits to sustainable livestock production systems. UK farmers and other land-managers will benefit from the production of more N and P efficient varieties of forage grasses and white clover, enabling lower fertilizer inputs and associated energy costs. The outputs of this project in terms of improved N and P use efficiency in grasses and white clover will reduce the impacts of fertilizer applications in crops of the key species employed in UK grassland systems. Enhanced uptake and use efficiencies of N and P of grasses and white clover should decrease through improved nutrients uptake and lower requirements for additions of supplementary fertiliser.

Society: There will be direct environmental benefits from this project to wider society. UK statutory regulatory authorities including the Environment Agency and National Rivers Authority, together with commercial Water Companies will benefit economically from variety take-up and consequent reductions in N andP losses from agro-ecosystems contributing to eutrophication of water courses, aquifer pollution, and gaseous (N) emissions to the atmosphere. Policy makers will benefit from the addition made by varieties with improved NUE to the portfolio of measures for implementing and rewarding environmentally sustainable land-management at individual farm and catchment level, not least in nitrate vulnerable zones. Finally, the public at large will benefit economically, recreationally and in terms of health as a consequence of the enhancements in environmental quality accruing from the wide-spread application of the project's deliverables