Farmer involvement in agro-ecological research: organic on-farm wheat variety trials in Hungary and the Slovakian upland

The acreage of organic farming is constantly increasing in Hungary. The cultivation of cereals—and within it—the production of winter wheat is of main importance in organic field crop production. Besides the challenges of global climate change, various difficulties are known, such as the inadequate variety assortment, lack of knowledge on the performance of varieties under organic conditions and often low quality of the seeds sown. As official post-registration variety trials only exist under conventional farming conditions in Hungary, the Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (OMKi) started participatory organic on-farm variety tests in 2012, with the involvement of volunteer farmers all over the country. Over the past 7 years, nearly 60 wheat varieties and more than 20 farms have been included in the tests. The aim of the study was to find the most suitable varieties for high-quality organic wheat production and exclude inappropriate varieties for respective production regions. Results demonstrated that there is great potential in choosing varieties best suited to regional environmental conditions and that it is possible to achieve both high yield and excellent quality also in organic farming when adopting the appropriate varieties. The use of varieties, which were proven to be disease tolerant or resistant, can significantly contribute to safer organic production. The comparisons between the performance of varieties indicated that organic breeding has a great role in all of the above matters.