Fodder Crops and Amenity Grasses / Edition 1

by Beat Boller, Ulrich K. Posselt, Fabio Veronesi

Overview

Grassland farming in Europe was already established during the settlement of the first farmers together with their domesticated animals after the last ice age. Since then, grassland provides the forage basis to feed ruminant animals for the p- duction of meat and milk. Depending on the ecological conditions and intensity of usage, various plant communities with different species developed, displaying a rich biodiversity. With the introduction of improved crop rotations at the end of the 16th century, grasses and legumes were also grown to an important extent as forage crops on arable land. In the last decades the importance of amenity grasses increased markedly, due to the demand of the society for new usages like landscape protection. Around 1900 interested farmers and academics identi ed the need for gra- land improvement through systematic selection and seed production. This marks the beginning of breeding and research in companies but also at universities and specialized research institutes. Plant collection started with many of the species that are still of importance today. The collected materials were grouped according to the intended use and some type of phenotypic selection was applied. Seed mul- plication of such populations was performed in pure stands and the harvested seed was marketed. Although the vegetative biomass and its quality are of utmost imp- tance in forage crop breeding, it is the seed yield potential which determines the commercial success of a new variety.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441907592
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	12/17/2009
Series:	Handbook of Plant Breeding , #5
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	524
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

They are the acting (BB), past (UKP) and past-past (FV) chairman of the section ‘Fodder Crops and Amenity Grass Breeding’ of EUCARPIA, the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding.

Beat Boller is a clover and grass breeder at Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon in Zürich, a research station of the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs. Between 1989 and 2009, he created and released 60 registered cultivars of 11 species, including red and white clover, ryegrasses, fescues, and cocksfoot, which are listed in many European countries. He also has wide experience in genetic resources of forages, having acted as chairman of the Forages Working Group of ECPGR between 2002 and 2007. Since 2008, he is President designate of EUCARPIA.

Ulrich K. Posselt is a research plant breeder and was head of the forage research group at the State Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Hohenheim until his retirement in 2008. His research activities were on the ryegrasses and mainly devoted to breeding methodology, disease resistance, application of biotechnological techniques and molecular tools. This lead to more than 50 scientific publications in reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He was involved in teaching forage crop breeding and training of Ph.D. and MS students.

Fabio Veronesi is professor of plant biotechnologies and chair of the MS degree in human feeding and nutrition sciences at University of Perugia., where he is also in charge of the PhD program in botany and agroenvironmental, animal and food biotechnologies. His research activities have been mainly devoted to forage plant breeding (with special emphasis for alfalfa), meiotic mutations, transformation technologies applied to alfalfa, germplasm collection, conservation and evaluation, environmental and human impacts of genetically engineered plants. This lead to more than 70 technical papers in reviewed journals.

Table of Contents

1 The Role of Forage Crops in Multifunctional Agriculture Dirk Reheul Benny De Cauwer Mathias Cougnon 1

2 Genetic Resources Beat Boller Stephanie L. Greene 13

3 Breeding Methods in Cross-Pollinated Species Ulrich K. Posselt 39

4 Development and Application of Biotechnological and Molecular Genetic Tools Roland K?lliker Daniele Rosellini Zeng-Yu Wang 89

5 Breeding Objectives in Forages Michael D. Casler Edzard van Santen 115

6 Breeding Objectives in Amenity Grasses Sheena Duller Daniel Thorogood Stacy A. Bonos 137

7 Breeding for Grass Seed Yield Birte Boelt Bruno Studer 161

8 Control of Cultivar Release and Distribution Trevor J. Gilliland 175

9 Future Developments and Uses Joseph H. Bouton 201

10 Ryegrasses Mervyn Humphreys Ulf Feuerstein Muriel Vandewalle Joost Baert 211

11 Fescues Odd Arne Rognli Malay C. Saha Suresh Bhamidimarri Stefan van der Heijden 261

12 Festulolium Marc Ghesqui?re Michael W. Humphreys Zbigniew Zwierzykowski 293

13 Cocksfoot Yasuharu Sanada Marie-Christine Gras Edzard van Santen 317

14 Timothy Hiroyuki Tamaki Joost Baert Petter Marum 329

15 Bluegrasses David R. Huff 345

16 Minor Grass Species Grzegorz Zurek Magdalena ?evč?kov? 381

17 Alfalfa Fabio Veronesi E. Charles Brummer Christian Huyghe 395

18 Red Clover Beat Boller Franz Xaver Schubiger Roland K?lliker 439

19 White Clover Michael T. Abberton Athole H. Marshall 457

20 Minor Legume Species Efisio Piano Luciano Pecetti 477

Subject Index 501