Multi-environment, cross-border field trials for three major crops in the Nordic countries
Conference
10th International Conference on Agricultural Statistics
Format: CPS Abstract - ICAS 2026
Keywords: climate change, data, multi-environment trials, open-access-data, plant-breeding
Abstract
Climate change will have a substantial impact on agriculture, requiring the development of new crop varieties adapted for their resilience to future stresses. Developing a new crop variety is a decades-long process, therefore climate change considerations must already be incorporated into breeding programs. National breeding programs have typically involved field trials in a single country, which is satisfactory during periods of stable climate variability. However, it is widely acknowledged that making field trial information across borders available would significantly aid plant breeding programs. We discuss the development of a pan-Nordic field trial dataset that fuses information from a number of Nordic countries for the barley, red clover and potato crops. Our openly available dataset will enable plant breeders to broaden the scope of their analyses and make more informed breeding programs.