Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants
Bundesforschungsinstitut für Kulturpflanzento homepage

Resistant crops have to be considered as the most cost effective and environmental as well as consumer friendly way of plant protection and are therefore an integral part of sustainable plant production systems. Genetic adaptation of crop plants to climate change - resulting in rising or changing abiotic stress conditions (drought, higher temperatures etc.) - with respect to yield and yield stability, nutrient use efficiency and quality traits, is of prime importance today and in the future. Besides this, interactions between climate change and the incidence of pathogens have to be taken into account. Therefore, research aims at the genetic improvement of crop plants concerning the traits mentioned above in order to ensure a highly productive as well as an environmentally sound and consumer protecting plant production against the backdrop of climate change.

To achieve these goals the institute is subdivided into the divisions “Biotic stress” and “Abiotic stress” which are spanned by the group “Molecular analyses and markers”. In detail, research focuses on the following topics:

• Development of efficient screening methods for the detection of resistance or tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress
• Evaluation of plant genetic resources with respect to biotic and abiotic stress as a prerequisite for improving resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and broadening the genetic base
• Genetic analyses of resistance or tolerance and development of molecular markers for qualitatively or quantitatively inherited traits
• Structural and functional analyses of resistance/tolerance at the genome level
• Development of strategies and methods for a sustainable use of respective resistances or tolerances in plant breeding  

Based on this procedure research on diverse topics with respect to improving resistance/tolerance to biotic/abiotic stress of agricultural and horticultural crops is conducted.