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Dr Viktor Korzun after his talk	Visiting the phenotyping platform with our guest Dr Viktor Korzun

Conference abstract

At the beginning of the 21st Century, mankind faces the challenge of feeding a growing population with increasing demands in the quality of food. Forecasts of climate change indicate additional uncertainty and place even more pressure on our natural resources to provide enough food for everyone.

In this context, genomics applied to agriculture and more specifically to cereal production must play an important role in sustainably balancing the world’s food supply and demand by developing new varieties that are adapted to the different environmental conditions and make better use of inputs.

Conventional cereal breeding is time-consuming and depends on environmental conditions. Therefore, breeders are extremely interested in new technologies that could make this procedure more efficient. Molecular marker technology offers such a possibility by adopting a wide range of novel approaches to improve selection strategies in breeding.  There has been a large and rapid accumulation of genomics tools in cereal crops during last decade. These developments have been coupled with the emergence of high throughput technologies, which have allowed advances in molecular marker technology and implementation.

Genetic engineering allows the use of existing genetic variability and can also create genetic variability not possible with classical breeding methods. However, transgenic approaches are not the sole solution for the challenges we face from climate change. They must be complemented by conventional breeding tools and marker-assisted precision breeding.

The complete restoration of pollen fertility and reduced infection by the ergot fungus in breeding hybrid varieties in rye and resistances in wheat and barley are prime targets in practical breeding programmes. In all cases the breeding process can be accelerated by applying molecular markers for developing new material and for improvement of the selection intensity and accuracy.

The impact of new molecular tools and technologies available for plant variety development has proven to be essential to optimize and accelerate breeding programs.

The results of specific applications of molecular markers, potential of genomic selection, genomics and genetic engineering in cereals will be presented and discussed.

Biography

Viktor Korzun have more than 20 years’ experience in development and application of molecular markers and novel breeding technologies in cereal crops, establishment, participation and coordination of national and international projects and strategic evaluation of current and new development in area of plant research and molecular breeding.  He has currently about 150 scientific publications and he is an Associate Editor in the Journal Molecular Breeding. Viktor has studied agronomy and plant breeding between 1981-1986 in Belarusian Agricultural Academy in Belarus (graduation with an excellence). He spends four years worked as a head of agronomy department on large agricultural farm. He perform his PhD work in in plant genetics at  Institute Genetics and Cytology, Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus and at the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany and received the title the Doctor in plant genetics  in 2004. After this time is worked as visiting scientist at the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Germany in Germany and at the Cambridge Laboratory, JI Centre for Plant Science Research, Norwich, UK. From 1996 till 1998 he was a Postdoctoral research worker in Gene & Genome Mapping Group, Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany.  Since 1999 Viktor Korzun is a Head of Cereals Biotechnology at KWSCEREALS Division, Germany, www.kws.com

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Viktor Korzun - KWS CEREALS, 37574 Einbeck, Germany - viktor.korzun@kws.com

http://www.triticeaegenome.eu/institutions.php?id=15

Contact

Hélène Bergès, CNRGV