Tom Allen, BOFIN
A £2.5m project will see the first precision-bred oilseed rape grown on UK commercial farms – marking a major step towards the largescale growing of the crop.
The project is being led by the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN). It is being funded through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, which is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
The aim is to tackle light leaf spot – oilseed rape’s most damaging disease – using precision breeding alongside new disease-management tools. Called LLS-Erased, the project involves growers, plant breeders, crop scientists and agronomists.
Disease threat
Light leaf spot has become the number one disease threat to UK oilseed rape in recent years. Yield losses have risen from £94m in 2017 to more than £300m in 2022 – prompting many growers to stop growing the crop.
Despite widespread fungicide use, control has become increasingly unreliable as pathogen populations evolve and resistance to azole fungicides spreads. At the same time, currently available varieties struggle to offer strong, durable resistance.
LLS-Erased aims to deliver rape varieties with significantly reduced susceptibility to light leaf spot, developed using precision-breeding techniques that accelerate the introduction of beneficial traits without introducing foreign DNA.
Commercial farms
Crucially, the project will move these traits beyond the laboratory and into farmer-led field trials on commercial farms, supported by real-time disease forecasting and decision-support tools.
“This project is game-changing for farmers,” says LLS- Erased project lead Tom Allen-Stevens, of BOFIN farmers.
“It will put precision-bred oilseed rape technology on to their farms for the first time across Europe. This is combined with risk forecasting and a new decision support tool that will bring growers effective disease control that is truly risk-based and data-driven. That is the reboot the industry needs, and that is what will help reverse the decline in the crop’s planted area.”
Reducing risk
At the heart of the project is a newly identified plant susceptibility gene. By switching off this gene using precision breeding, researchers have shown it is possible to reduce the ability of the light leaf spot pathogen to infect the crop.
This offers the crop a more durable form of protection than traditional resistance genes that pathogens can quickly overcome – helping to reduce risk and encourage renewed interest in growing the crop.
The science is being led by John Innes Centre and the University of Hertfordshire, working alongside ADAS and Scottish Agronomy to integrate the new trait into practical, farm-ready disease-management strategies.
A consortium of leading UK and European oilseed rape breeders is involved in developing the disease-forecasting and testing material in elite commercial backgrounds.
Real-world impact
UK Agri-Tech Centre is overseeing project delivery and integration, supporting effective collaboration across partners and ensuring outputs remain focused on adoption, scalability and real-world impact.
A key element of the project is collaboration with US-based precision breeding experts Cibus, whose Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS) includes a suite of technologies including non-transgenic processes.
The RTDS system enables precise genetic edits to be introduced directly into elite breeding lines with scale and speed, dramatically shortening the time needed to bring new traits to market.
Sustainable farming
Rachel Wells
“I am really excited to move our resistant material from the laboratory to field scale trials to see how it performs in a real-world setting,” says LLS-Erased technical lead Rachel Wells, of the John Innes Centre.
“Precision Breeding offers us an excellent opportunity to develop material to combat our pests and pathogens while supporting sustainable farming,” says Dr Wells.
A trusted pipeline to streamline variety development is seen as invaluable for crop improvement. “Bringing this work together in an integrated pest management package looking at multiple, combined solutions, is the future of crop protection.”
Yongju Huang
Disease control
For airborne diseases like light leaf spot, information on timing of pathogen spore release and virulence in pathogen populations is essential for effective disease control, adds Yongju Huang, Professor of plant pathology at University of Hertfordshire. “Combined with host resistance information about the pathogen, this project will develop an evidence-based real-time decision support system for farmers to achieve effective disease control and reduce the reliance on chemicals.”
Alongside new varieties, LLS-Erased will deliver a farmer-led delivery platform designed to support the adoption of precision-bred crops. This includes a new disease-management tool combining weather data, pathogen monitoring and on-farm trial results to guide fungicide use more accurately, reducing unnecessary applications while protecting yield.