Bioresources

This course integrates plant physiology, agronomy, and breeding for bioresource crops. Recent developments in the agronomy of biomass, protein, and oil production, methods for classical and marker-assisted plant breeding, and metabolic engineering of biosynthetic pathways are discussed. There will be special attention for multi-purpose crops such as hemp, potato, sugar beet, maize, and miscanthus, as well as novel biobased uses of existing crops. At the level of plant tissues, strategies for the characterization of genes and metabolic pathways leading to high value compounds will be discussed. At the level of the individual crop, agronomic criteria for best suitable crops will be analysed in relation to the farming system and the region, and this will be viewed in the light of crops ecological footprint. To improve these tissue and crop level bioresource traits, several aspects of classical and molecular breeding for quality of biobased crops will be explained and discussed.

• Quantitatively analyse productivity of biomass crops, ecological sustainability and yields of the different crop components

• Explain the principles of on-farm conservation and on-farm pre-processing of biomass

• Understand the basics of breeding for quality of biomass and development of Multi-purpose crops

• Understand the basics of the metabolic pathways leading to the most important bio-resource components and principles of metabolic engineering

• ? (60%)
• ? (40%) In case of a failed case study report students can hand in a revised version at the next re-sit period.

BCT23806 or PPH10806 or MIB20306, MOB20306.

• - Plant Physiology: Biology of Plants, (Evert and Eichhorn, eds), 8th edition: Chapter 2, Chapter 3, pp 38- 62, Chapter 4, Chapter 10. - Plant Breeding: Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding (Acquaah, ed) chapters 1 and 2; and Introduction to Genetic analysis (Griffiths, Wessler, Carroll and Doebley, eds) chapter 2, 3, 4 and 6. - Agronomy: Module 2 of the PAME website, which is a module from the 1st block (Principles of Crop Ecology) of the course CSA10806 Introduction Quantitative Agroecology (co-ordinator Lammert Bastiaanse, teacher Gerrie van de Ven). The PAME website is accessible at http://www.pame.wur.nl (click on XS2ALL, then access module 2).