The products of the future
The requirements for future products are
substantial. They must be better able to survive extreme climatic
conditions, and more resistant to diseases. The market also demands
improved yield and quality with less added nutrients. These
challenges motivate us to develop new high quality varieties that will meet
be environmentally and economically sustainable.
The SIMPLEX beet
DLF-TRIFOLIUM’s first genetically modified product is the fodder beet
variety Simplex, which was created in cooperation with Danisco and
Monsanto. Simplex is ready for marketing, but awaiting EU approval. The
variety was made resistant to the pesticide glyphosate (RoundUp), and it
has a number of environmental and growth advantages as compared to
conventional varieties. They include greater flexibility in weed
control and a lower pesticide consumption.
Studies by the Danish National Environmental Research Institute have shown
that later glyphosate treatment in the spring, results in greater
species diversity among wild plants and insects in the field, and thus more
food for animals and birds during their critical breeding period.
Stemless and non-flowering grass/biological
containment
In close collaboration with Risø National Laboratory at Roskilde,
DLF-TRIFOLIUM is working on a targeted research 
program aimed
primarily at creating grass varieties that won't produce stems and
flowers. Stemless and non-flowering grass varieties will reduce the risk of
spreading transgenes from genetically modified grass varieties to related
species in nature (biological containment). These varieties will
also have increased nutritional value and biomass, as the energy
normally used by the plant to form stems and seeds can instead be
redirected to increasing the leaf mass.
DLF-TRIFOLIUM is also participating in a European collaborative project,
CONFLOW – “Control of Flowering Time for Sustainable and Competitive
Agriculture and Forestry” – under the EU’s Fifth Framework Program (conflow.risoe.dk).
Increased drought and cold tolerance
Abiotic stress phenomena such as drought, cold or excessive soil salinity
are serious inhibitory factors for all plant growth, with greater climatic
extremes expeted in the future, our own latitudes will require more robust
crops. Breeding for increased stress tolerance is complicated. DLF is
working to develop technologies in grasses that will improve resistance to
cold, drought and salt stress.
Improved nutritional value
The grass field is an important item in sustainable agriculture. If we can
further improve the general nutritional value of grass, the need for daily
supplementary cereal-based concentrated feed will decrease, and forage
grass will gain even greater significance in the agriculture of the
future.
DLF-TRIFOLIUM is working to create grass varieties with improved
nutritional value. Our strategy is multi-faceted, and we are using all of
our traditional breeding methods in combination with advanced
analytical methods, marker-based breeding and gene technology.
One strategy is to make the grass more digestible by reducing the content
of lignin, a cell wall component which is difficult to digest. Another
strategy is based on increasing the grass’s content of water-soluble
carbohydrates, fructanes, which are an important energy source and a
critical factor for the grass's nutritional value.
Resistance to fungal diseases 
Attack by fungal diseases in lawns is an increasing problem throughout the
world. With the aid of traditional and marker-based breeding, it is
possible to produce grass varieties with good resistance to certain fungi.
Breeding with respect to rust resistance has been very successful, but
several other fungal diseases have proved to be considerably more
difficult.
In cooperation with the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of
Copenhagen, DLF-TRIFOLIUM has initiated a research project aimed at
producing grass varieties with broad-spectrum resistance to a number of
harmful fungal diseases.
