Genetic and non-genetic long-term trends of 12 different crops in German official variety performance trials and on-farm yield trends

Key message Yield progress in major German crops is generated mostly due to genetic improvement over the last 30 years. Comparison of trial-station with on-farm yield reveals considerable gaps that are widening over time. Abstract Yield progress of newly released varieties for 12 crops from official German trials over the period 1983 until 2012 was analysed to assess their value for cultivation and use (VCU). We paid special attention to dissect progress into a genetic and a non-genetic (agronomic) trend in order to quantify the contribution made by new varieties and by agronomic factors. In this study, we apply mixed models including regression components for genetic and agronomic trends. Ageing effects, depending on the difference of the actual testing year and the first year of testing of a particular variety, were estimated from the difference of fungicide and non-fungicide-treated trial pairs. Significant yield losses were found in all cereal crops due to assumed ageing effects. We compared national on-farm with official VCU trial yields with particular focus on whether gaps are widening over time. Results indicated a significant widening over time. In order to facilitate comparisons of results across crops, we calculated percent rates based on 1983 yield levels obtained from regression estimates. Most of the yield progress was generated by genetic improvement, and was linear showing no levelling-off. Ageing and selection effects need to be taken into account, because they may lead to overestimation of genetic trends. This study showed that contribution of agronomic factors is of minor importance in overall yield progress. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00122-014-2402-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.