The INSUSFAR project aims at analyzing the effects of genetic diversity within winter wheat and winter
barley populations on their ability to adapt to low input farming conditions. The project furthermore
analyzes historical data on the breeding progress during the past two decades and conducts socio-economic
and ecological studies of farming systems. In the course of INSUSFAR, the individual project partners
deliver a very diverse array of data that have to be stored and have to be provided to all project
partners for further analyses. This is achieved by the implementation of an information system that meets
the specific needs of the INSUSFAR project.
Demand analysis and functional requirements
A comprehensive demand analysis was conducted to identify the individual needs of the INSUSFAR
project partners regarding the information system. Based on the contributions of the project partners,
11 use cases are described that define the functional requirements for the information system. The use
cases cover all INSUSFAR aspects where data are generated, extracted, stored and retrieved, e.g. data on
the origin of populations and pedigrees of varieties, data on cultivation conditions, genetic data,
characterization and evaluation data from field trials, climate and soil data, historical trial data,
as well as economic data. In addition, non-functional and technical requirements are defined within the
demand analysis.
The information system was named ROBUSTUM which refers to the expected robustness of populations towards
varying stress conditions. In a first step, a basic database was designed and implemented to meet the
short-term need to store and retrieve historical trial data. Exemplarily, 11,888 records from German
variety trials between the years 2001 and 2015 representing 307 varieties tested at 60 locations were
imported into the database. The data can be retrieved using a web-based user interface and query tool.
Design of ROBUSTUM
The structure of ROBUSTUM was designed based on the use cases defined previously. An entity-relationship
diagram reflects the structure and dependencies of tables and attributes that are implemented within the
database scheme running in the background. Activity diagrams were assembled to model the user-system
interactions of ROBUSTUM with respect to breeding material import, editing, query, and export.
The functionality for breeding material documentation and to record crosses as breeding actions was
implemented. Exemplarily, an entire MAGIC crossing scheme that starts with 32 winter barley varieties
and that comprises 716 crossing steps and lines was imported into ROBUSTUM. For optimal illustration of
such complex structures, a module for graphical display of pedigrees was also implemented. Furthermore, a
functionality was designed that enables adding of further attributes to specific tables. ROBUSTUM will
provide access to the data generated within the project also beyond the duration of INSUSFAR, and will
furthermore comprise a flexible structure to serve as an information system template for related future
projects.
Perspective
ROBUSTUM is being established as an information system consisting of a relational database and a user
interface that covers all needs of the INSUSFAR project partners as defined by the demand analysis with
its 11 use cases. A user-friendly web-interface is being developed for easy data annotation and access to
the database. ROBUSTUM will not only be useful for the INSUSFAR project, but will - due to its flexible
structure - also constitute a valuable resource for future projects that investigate crop populations with
respect to agricultural inputs, ecological services and economic outputs.
Project partners
- Chair of Plant Nutrition, Technical University of Munich
- Chair for Organic Farming and Agronomy, Technical University of Munich
- Department of Organic Plant Breeding and Agrobiodiversity, University of Kassel
- Department of Farm Management, University of Kassel
- Department of Ecological Plant Protection, University of Kassel
- Institute for Breeding Research on Agricultural Crops, Julius Kühn-Institut
The project is being funded by BMBF (031A350B).