Description du projet
Des pâturages de meilleure qualité pour accroitre la production et diminuer les émissions de méthane
Il est crucial de développer de nouvelles variétés de plantes fourragères pour soutenir la production de lait et de viande. La haute digestibilité du fourrage a des effets positifs sur la production animale et peut contribuer à limiter les émissions de méthane, ce qui constitue un des objectifs clés de la politique climatique de l’UE. Malgré cela, l’amélioration de la digestibilité de l’ivraie vivace, ou ray-grass anglais (PRG), est restée limitée en raison de son long cycle de production. Toutefois, utiliser l’information contenue dans l’ADN pour estimer la digestibilité d’une plante permet de réduire d’au moins un facteur cinq le temps nécessaire pour compléter un cycle de sélection. Le projet GenSPaD, financé par l’UE, développera et testera des approches permettant d’utiliser les informations ADN pour prédire la valeur nutritionnelle des cultures dans le cadre des programmes de sélection fourragère.
Objectif
Breeding for improved perennial ryegrass (PRG) cultivars to support pastoral based production systems for milk and meat is a critically important goal. However, genetic gains for traits such as forage yield and quality have very much lagged behind genetic gain for agronomic traits in cereals. One reason for this is the long breeding cycle in a typical PRG breeding programme, where a single cycle of selection can take 5-6 years. Genomic selection (GS) is a form of marker assisted selection that simultaneously estimates all loci, haplotype, or marker effects across the entire genome to calculate Genomic Estimated Breeding Values (GEBVs). The main advantage that GS could offer PRG breeding is to enable multiple cycles of selection to be achieved in the same time it takes to do a single cycle of conventional selection, thereby increasing the rate of genetic gain. Improving digestibility of the forage leads to an increase in animal performance, and is therefore an important target trait for forage breeders. Furthermore, it has already been shown that increases in organic matter digestibility can reduce methane emissions. Reducing methane emissions is a key target of the EUs climate and energy policy. In this action I will focus on developing and validating GS equations for feed parameters that are being used as model inputs into the Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS). This CNCPS is currently being adapted to predict nutritional value to the grazing animal in pasture based production systems, and it is envisaged that it will be able to identify feed parameters limiting milk-solid production and thereby direct future forage breeding efforts. The work of this action will lead to a novel and innovative forage breeding programme that can select for multiple feed parameters to develop the ideal forage cultivars for pasture production systems.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculescarbohydrates
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureindustrial cropsfodder
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryaliphatic compounds
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturegrains and oilseedscereals
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
R93 Carlow
Irlande