Austria
January 8, 2018
by Robert Taucher, Maize Breeder, Saatbau Linz
Breeding work started in 1978 in Feldkirchen on the Danube with the first self-pollinations and cross breeding of freely available parental lines and tests with hybrids. Soon, the breeding activities concentrated on the new site Kammerergut in Schönering (municipality Wilhering in Upper Austria) and were continually expanded over the years. Maize breeding has become a real success story for SAATBAU LINZ – as shown by the more than 100 varieties registered across Europe.
The Kammerergut farm with its 145 hectares of crop land still serves as the main selection and testing site for the maize breeding activities of SAATBAU LINZ. In addition to the regular employees (10 full time jobs, 3 part time jobs), temporary workers are hired for peak periods such as preparing for sowing, pollination and harvesting so that the workload of the breeding and testing programmes can be managed.
State-of-the-art machinery including some special equipment such as an 8-row plot seeder for maize, two double-plot combines with online NIRS analysis devices as well as laboratory equipment for processing the many small quantities from the breeding gardens and isolation fields, allows the extensive work relating to the analysis and multiplication of the breeding material on the field and in the laboratory to be carried out. Growing winter generations in Mexico and Chile with breeding garden for developing parental lines and several topcross isolation fields for the production of thousands of test hybrids per year has become standard practice.
SAATBAU LINZ develops its parental lines using DH technology (DH = doubled haploids) which has established itself in the course of recent years. This technology not only accelerates the breeding cycles, but it also boasts many other advantages for the breeder such as a guaranteed 100% homogeneity of the parental lines. Test crossings for parental line selection and hybrid selection are carried out within different test programmes at our testing stations in Austria. Large numbers of tested hybrids are discarded at a very early stage. Selected material undergoes further tests and those showing excellent results are then filed for the official examination.
Parental line seeds and the first harvests of new hybrids are dried and processed in a special plant. This allows for the flexible and high quality production of small quantities with great flexibility. Authorised and registered hybrids such as ANGELO, DANUBIO, DIEGO, PERRERO etc. in Austria, as well as DANUBIO, EDUARDO, RIGOLETTO and many more in other European countries have been successfully brought to the market. Our double usage variety DANUBIO has been registered in 10 countries as grain maize and/or silage maize and is currently SAATBAU’s top-selling variety. By November 2017, a total of 115 varieties bred at the Schönering breeding station had been registered.
Naturally, we closely observe and discuss international developments, trends and changes in the characteristics expected from varieties and integrate these insights into our breeding activities.
Our maize breeding station Schönering as a whole – i.e. our motivated and dedicated employees, the necessary surfaces for the breeding garden, the selection and production, as well as the relevant buildings and modern equipment have made these successes possible and keep us optimistic for the future.
Topics
Species
