Genetic Progress and Durability of Resistances in Straw Cereals: Feedback from GEVES on the 2025 Edition of the UFS-Arvalis Meetings

The UFS-Arvalis Meetings, organised for the last three years, were held on 5 February 2025 in Paris. This event brought together a large number of stakeholders in the straw cereals sector to discuss disease tolerance and the durability of resistance. A number of GEVES and Arvalis collaborators contributed to the presentation of genetic progress, tracing the development of the CTPS technical regulations from 1983 to the present day to support and encourage this progress. The second part was devoted to managing the sustainability of resistance, with GEVES presenting the Horizon Europe IPMorama project, and in particular the following actions:

• Epidemiological monitoring of the three wheat rusts (yellow, brown and black), using the Wheatrust toolbox database from the University of Aarhus. GEVES continues to manage sentinel varieties, planted in the field in nearly 80 VSCU or seed trials in 16 European countries, to warn of new virulences.
• Monitoring the deployment of varietal resistance to wheat rusts in Europe, using INRAE’s DiverCILand database
• The future creation of vulnerability maps resulting from the merging of information from these two databases, in order to extend the lifespan of the most vulnerable varietal resistances.

These meetings enable GEVES to keep informed of advances in research, with this year’s theme being varietal resistance. They are also a forum for exchange and sharing with the various members of the industry.