Future options and targets for pasture plant breeding in New Zealand

Industries based on pastoral farming have increased their contribution to GDP from 13.5 to 17% since 1990 as the result of markedly intensified farming practices. In the future, we predict that this intensification will continue but, at the same time, there will be an emergence of an efficient, lower-input farming sector with almost no environmental footprint. Both sectors will require continuing input by pasture plant breeders. Over the past 20 years, development of pasture cultivars has become totally industry funded, with support from Crown funding for basic research. There have been several key advances in pasture plant breeding including new methods for using exotic germplasm and secondary gene-pools, modification of grass-endophyte associations, breeding for specific environments and the successful adoption of international breeding programmes. The emergence of genomics, marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genetic modification (GM) offer considerable promise for future development of pasture cultivars. Future grass breeding, aided by MAS and GM of both plants and endophytes, will place strong emphasis on feeding value for optimal animal performances, especially in intensive systems. There will also be development of grass types adapted to efficient, lower-input farming systems that will have minimal environmental impacts. White clover breeding has had a period of unprecedented input built on a strong foundation of knowledge and germplasm. For intensive agriculture, future breeding will emphasise disease and pest resistance, improved feed quality, seed production and the development of hybrid cultivars. For lower-input sustainable systems, breeding will aim to broaden the adaptation of clover to semi-arid and other marginal environments. This will involve increasing use of related clover species in interspecific hybrids, and selection for improved phosphate efficiency, N-fixation and drought tolerance. DNA technologies will provide an increasingly valuable contribution to these products but the predominant effort will involve plant breeding methods that recombine and select whole genomes. New Zealand farming is based on a small number of pasture plant species and, despite the expanded use of the herbs chicory and plantain, this number has reduced with intensification. It is predicted that some expansion, of the species base will be needed in future to cope with climate warming and the development of a sustainable low-input fanning sector. In particular, subtropical grasses should be investigated more thoroughly along with ways of enabling (perhaps new) legumes to be used with them. Despite a relatively enlightened germplasm introduction programme, the germplasm base of most pasture species is inadequate and requires continued effort to locate and import new materials from diverse international sources. International research networks have been developed in recent years and these will increasingly contribute to future pasture plant breeding progress. The current biosecurity and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms regulatory environment is not conducive to timely research and innovation on new species for agriculture and needs reconsideration by law makers.