Wheat and Barley

The EVA Wheat and Barley network is the European extension of a successful national evaluation network in Germany (EVA-II), which has been operational since 2001 as a public-private partnership to evaluate wheat and barley accessions in German collections. As the biggest EVA network, EVA Wheat and Barley divides its activities into three geographic zones across Europe (Nordic, Central and South zones) and evaluates spring and winter barley, spring and winter wheat as well as durum wheat accessions, mostly for biotic stress responses in field evaluations.  

The EVA Wheat and Barley network also contributes to the Horizon2020 project AGENT (Activated GEnebank NeTwork), evaluating accessions from AGENT partner genebanks in 2023 and 2024. The AGENT project aims at creating a network of actively cooperating European genebanks and transitioning them into active bio-digital resource centres. Using wheat and barley as example crops to implement “genebank genomics” approaches and tools for genebank data management and analysis, which will ultimately be applicable also to other crops. The interaction between AGENT and the EVA Wheat and Barley network ensures that AGENT genebank materials are showcased in the fields of external stakeholders: breeders and organic farmers.