MOOSzucht

Joint project: Breeding and mass propagation of peat moss in Sphagnum farming to create a sustainable supply of renewable raw material for horticultural growing media.

To reach high yields and thus make Sphagnum farming economically feasible the joint project ‘MOOSzucht’ aims to increase current Sphagnum productivity by 30 % through selection and breeding. Several wild provenances of Sphagnum species (suited for growing media) will be genetically characterized (SSR marker assays) to understand the relationship between and distribution of Sphagnum genotypes. Highly productive provenances are then selected for further cultivation and propagation. In addition, breeding trials with axenic cultures will serve to increase productivity through polyploidization using protoplast transfer (Sphagnum Smart Breeding, SSB).

Large-scale implementation of Sphagnum farming is currently hampered by a lack of appropriate volumes of high quality moss propagules as seeding material for new cultivation sites. To address this issue, ‘MOOSzucht’ aims for large scale mass propagation of Sphagnum propagules in a photobioreactor. This innovative production method requires axenic cultures of the Sphagnum material as well as optimal growing conditions in the photobioreactor. Also non-axenic Sphagnum mass propagation on irrigated fleece will be tested and optimized.

The performance of the seeding material produced in the project will be tested under field conditions in our demonstration site ‘Hankhauser Moor’ in Lower Saxony (Germany).