The impact of climate change is becoming increasingly clear for every year. As a result of the debate, the demand for plant based protein food is on the rise, not least when it comes to domestic production.

The Nordic countries have a long cultivation tradition of legumes such as fava beans and peas. Given the increased interest, the future of Nordic cultivation of legumes should be brigth. An increased domestic production would also bee positive for Nordic food security and a climate-smart alternative to imported soybeans. Legumes such as peas also have the capacity of fixing nitrogen in the fields, a property with many benefits.

NordGen's collection includes lentils, beans and more than 2.000 accessions of peas – an asset that can be of importance for the future Nordic plant breeding. Below you can read more about some of our work with legumes.

In 2021, a large part of NordGens seed samples of beans and peas were photographed. In total 2.227 accessions were photographed, 1.908 of these were peas. Thereby valubale information about the visual characteristics of the original seed samples are available.

As described in the previous chapter Projects, the results of the project Arctic Pea was published in 2021. During the years 2018 and 2019, the selection of 50 accessions selected from NordGen’s pea collection was tested in four different locations in the Nordic region: Tromsø (Norway), Umeå (Sweden), Jokioinen (Finland) and Taastrup (Denmark).

For example, the results showed that landraces (i.e. populations of cultivated plants adapted locally where they were grown but not developed by commercial plant breeding) did well. Among the accessions that had high seed yield (about 13 dry grams of seeds per plant) were one cultivar and three landraces. Also when it came to the protein concentration of the peas, a number of landraces ended up at the top. Two landraces and two cultivars showed a protein concentration above 27 percent.

Many of the accessions that performed best at the northernmost cultivation sites in Tromsø and Umeå were sugar pea landraces gathered from northern locations.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a backup facility for the world’s crop diversity. By putting seed duplicates for long-term and safe storage in Svalbard, genebanks reduce the risk of losing invaluable genetic material if anything should happen to their original collections. NordGen is responsible for operating the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in cooperation with the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the international organization Global Crop Diversity Trust. NordGen’s role in the Seed Vault partnership is to communicate with genebanks, handle seed deposits and update the Seed Portal – a publicly accessible database gathering information about the seeds stored in the Seed Vault.

Two genebanks deposited seeds for the first time in 2021; the national genebanks in Serbia and in Latvia. Delegations from the two countries were present in Svalbard and accompanied their seed deposits at the Seed Vault Opening in October.

In total 50.926 safety duplicates from 22 depositors were added to the Seed Vault collection in 2021. By the end of the year the total holding of seed accessions in the Seed Vault was 1.125.419 samples deposited by 89 genebanks/institutes. 

The second set of seeds belonging to the 100-year seed germination experiment in the Seed Vault produced by IPK, Germany and INIAV, Portugal was prepared and packed at NordGen in Alnarp and put in place in the Seed Vault in 2021.

Nanofilm labels displaying data on seed samples stored in the seed boxes in the Seed Vault were produced in 2021. The film labels will be fixed to all seed boxes in the Seed Vault in 2022.

The Seed Vault was established in 2008 and is owned by Norway. NordGen is responsible for managing the Seed Vault in partnership with the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the international organization Crop Trust. The iconic building, on the top of the world, safeguards security copies of seeds stored in genebanks and thereby contributes to securing the world’s food supply.

The location of the Seed Vault was chosen due to Svalbard being a remote, cold and safe place, yet easily accessible for shipping and handling. In addition, the Nordic Genebank (now NordGen) stored a backup of the Nordic seed collection here already from 1984, something that inspired to the establishment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The seed chambers of the Seed Vault are carved out from the solid rock of the Plateau mountain. They offer a frozen environment where artificial cooling keeps the temperature at a constant –18°C and according to FAO’s genebank standards. The ownership of the seeds stored in the Seed Vault remains with the depositing genebank, and only the institution that deposited the seeds are allowed to withdraw them.

Together we are stronger. That’s the very essence of the Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding. Through the partnership, plant breeding companies in the Nordic region can cooperate in a non-competitive way on pre-breeding projects and cooperate on research with the Nordic public institutions. The Nordic Public-Private Partnership for pre-breeding is a collaboration aiming to strengthen plant pre-breeding in the Nordic countries and through its work promoting sustainable use of genetic resources in the Nordic region with its unique climate, temperature, and daylight. The Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding is funded by the Nordic countries and plant breeding entities, and the secretariat is placed at NordGen.

2021 was a busy year within the Nordic Public-Private Partnership for pre-breeding, as it marks the first year for the current program period 2021-2023 and several projects started their activities. Read more about the current projects below.

The Nordic Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for pre-breeding is a cooperation intended to strengthen plant breeding in the Nordic countries and through its work promote sustainable exploitation of genetic resources in the Nordic region with its unique climate, temperature, and daylight. The PPP is funded by the Nordic countries and plant breeding entities. The PPP Secretariat at NordGen is responsible for the administration of the Nordic PPP. The PPP Secretariat facilitates project management in cooperation with the PPP Steering Committee.

NORDFRUIT Apple is one year project with the purpose to complete earlier PPP apple projects and aim to facilitate implementation of new technologies into the Nordic apple breeding programs. Considerable efforts have been made in tree and fruit storage diseases. However, results need to be confirmed to capitalize the investments, and that is the main tasks of the one-year project. Supplementary phenotyping will be conducted for validation of genetic markers, as phenotyping failed in previous years due to flower frost in spring.

6P3 will focus on operationalization of technologies and methods developed during the previous two project phases. Phenotypic data will be combined with a plant-soil-climate model to understand interactions between genotypes, local environments, climate and management. The aim is to provide Nordic plant breeders with the latest drone and imaging technologies, efficient data management tools, and a climate and stress response model to predict and breed genotypes resilient to climate change and environmental stresses.

SustainPotato will bring the potato breeding programs in Sweden, Denmark and Norway together with scientists from the Nordic universities to develop and implement new genetic resources and molecular tools for effective disease resistance breeding. This new initiative is expected to provide Nordic potato breeders, growers and retailers with new competitive potato cultivars and improve research into new high-throughput phenotyping and genotype methods that will be needed for future genomic-led potato breeding.

Spring wheat is currently cultivated at the northernmost limit for the crop where it faces several challenges linked to climate change. The project aims to increase the spring wheat yield potential and self-sufficiency in the Nordic region. This requires extensive pre-breeding activities and collaboration between breeders and researchers across borders. The project focuses on the identification of germplasm, genes, and genetic markers associated with disease resistance pre-harvest sprouting, and early maturity. Special attention will be paid to drought tolerance and diseases expected to be of future relevance to spring wheat in northern Europe.