Climate change will lead to increased temperatures and changed precipitation patterns in the Nordic region. As a consequence, plants need to be adapted to new agro-climatic conditions. Climate change will lead to needs for changed production systems, certain crops will expand to new regions and completely new crops will become introduced, in all aspects implying needs for new varieties for the competitiveness and sustainability of agriculture and forestry. Due to special conditions, such as day length and temperature, in the Nordic region these demands can not be met solely by introduction of imported varieties from other regions. Efforts in the entire plant breeding chain are a prerequisite to meet these demands on access to well adapted material for the Nordic region.
The course will cover different aspects of adaptation of crops and forest trees to the predicted changes caused by climate change. Examples include:
• General introduction to adaptation and climate change in the Nordic region
• Physiological and phenotypic responses to climate change
• Application of genetic resources in plant breeding
• Genetic and genomic aspects of adaptation to climate change
• Application of new techniques for breeding
• Determination of climatic envelope for our genetic resources
• Molecular mechanisms for abiotic stress resistance
• Breeding for improved plasticity
• Crop specific traits of relevance for climate change adaptation |
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