Europe’s first precision-bred oilseed rape will be grown on a commercial farm under a new £2.5m research project in the UK launched this week.
The three-year LLS-ERASED project will move precision-bred oilseed rape from the laboratory to farmer-led field trials as part of an effort to rebuild its role as the UK’s most important break crop.
The project, led by BOFIN Farmers, is funded through Defra’s Agricultural Innovation Program and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
Farmers, plant breeders, crop scientists and agronomists are coming together to tackle pale spot, the most harmful disease affecting rapeseed.
Mild spot disease is now the main disease threat to crops, with estimated yield losses increasing from 94 million pounds in 2017 to more than 300 million pounds by 2022.
Despite widespread fungicide use, control is becoming increasingly unreliable as pathogen populations evolve and resistance to azole fungicides spreads. Currently available varieties also struggle to provide durable protection.
This project aims to address this issue by developing oilseed rape varieties with reduced effects of light spot using precision breeding techniques that speed the introduction of beneficial traits without introducing foreign DNA.
Importantly, new traits will be tested on commercial farms, supported by disease prediction and decision support tools designed to more precisely target fungicide use.
“This project is a game-changer for farmers,” said Tom Allen-Stevens, LLS-ERASED project leader at BOFIN Farmers.
He added: “We will be the first to bring precision-grown oilseed rape technology to farms across Europe.”
The focus of the research is on newly identified plant susceptibility genes. The researchers showed that turning off this gene using precision breeding methods reduces the ability of light spot pathogens to infect crops, potentially providing a more durable form of protection than traditional resistance genes.
This scientific research is being led by the John Innes Center and the University of Hertfordshire, with ADAS and Scottish Agriculture focused on integrating this new trait into practical farm-ready disease management strategies.
A consortium of UK and European oilseed rape breeders with elite commercial backgrounds are participating in testing the material, and the UK Agritech Center is overseeing the implementation and coordination of the project to ensure production remains focused for on-farm adoption.
The project also involves the US-based company Cibus. The company’s Rapid Trait Development System enables the introduction of precise, transgene-free edits directly into elite breeding lines, reducing the time needed to bring new traits to market.
“We’re really excited to be able to move our resistant material from the lab to field-scale testing to see how it performs in a real-world environment,” said Dr. Rachel Wells, LLS-ERASED technical director at the John Innes Centre.
She added: “Precision Breeding provides us with an exciting opportunity to develop materials to fight pests and pathogens while supporting sustainable agriculture.”
In addition to new varieties, the project will provide a farmer-driven platform to support adoption, including disease management tools that combine weather data, pathogen monitoring, and on-farm testing results.
Professor Yongju Hwang, from the University of Hertfordshire, said: “Combined with host resistance information about pathogens, this project will develop a real-time, evidence-based decision support system to help farmers achieve effective disease management and reduce dependence on chemicals.”
On-farm trials will be carried out across England over a three-year project, with results feeding directly into a producer-led knowledge exchange network.
This approach aims to establish a pipeline of future precision breeding traits, including resistance to other diseases and pests such as the cabbage stem flea beetle.
