Developing genetic resources for pre-breeding in Brassica oleracea L.: an overview of the UK perspective

The vegetable brassicas are an important crop worldwide and are of significant commercial value. In order to ensure our targets for food security are met it is important that these crops are continually improved to increase sustainability of production, increase nutritional quality and reduce waste. Development of resistances against both biotic and abiotic stress are recognised as being key. Plant breeding plays a vital role in addressing these issues through the development of new and improved varieties. This continued improvement is becoming evermore dependent on our ability to identify and introgress beneficial alleles from 'exotic' germplasm into elite breeding material. Increasingly, more diverse germplasm such as those found in genebanks is being screened for benificial allelic variation, however, plant breeders often find it difficult to make use of such material due to the time required to remove undesirable characteristics from progeny due to linkage drag. This article describes how we have attempted to overcome this and develop resources that make the diversity available within the Brassica oleracea genepool more accessible.