Bread wheat variety testing for organic farming in Switzerland (2008 - 2024)

Summary in the original language of the document

Organic farming relies on disease-tolerant crop varieties that achieve stable yields and good quality under a low nitrogen input environment. Since 40 years, we have access to organic wheat varieties from the biodynamic breeding program by Peter Kunz (GZPK https://www.gzpk.ch/saatgutbezug/). On the other hand, conventional breeding by Agroscope (https://link.ira.agroscope.ch/de-CH/project/3759) in Switzerland has also focused not only on yield but also on disease tolerance. Today, there is a good availabity of suitable bread wheat varieties. To be able to recommend the most suitable varieties for organic farmers, we test promising varieties from this pool. Agroscope and FiBL have been maintaining a network of field trials for over 20 years, with 16 locations spread across the Swiss Plateau. The varieties are tested by Agroscope in small-scaled replicated plots for three years and by FiBL for another two years in on-farm trials without replications. The best varieties are published annually in the bread wheat variety list for organic farming (https://www.bioaktuell.ch/pflanzenbau/ackerbau/getreide/getreide-sorten/sortenempfehlungen-biogetreide).
The dataset includes bread wheat variety data (winter wheat) from 2008 - 2024 tested under Swiss pedoclimatic conditions. It is available open access in Zenodo with the DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15280946.