Damian Käch


Last Name

Käch

First Name

Damian

ORCID

0000-0002-7097-3348

Organisational unit

Filters

2023 - 20254
Reset filters

Search Results

Publications 1 - 4 of 4
  • Monitoring genetic diversity: unveiling species and cultivar dynamics in temporary grassland
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Käch, Damian; Loera-Sánchez, Miguel; Studer, Bruno; et al. (2025)
    Breeding and Genetic Improvement for a Net-Zero Future - Abstracts of the 36th Meeting of the EUCARPIA Fodder Crops and Amenity Grasses Section
  • Tillerbox: an easy-to-use tool to efficiently assess tiller density in grassland
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Käch, Damian; Reidy, Beat; Studer, Bruno; et al. (2024)
    Grassland Science in Europe ~ Why grasslands? Proceedings of the 30th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation
    Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is an important grass species in temperate regions due to its high forage quality and its high productivity. To maintain this productivity over time, high persistence is key. Tiller density is a trait strongly associated with persistence and is traditionally measured by manually counting tillers in swards. Even though this method is still considered state-of-the-art, it is intensive in labour and time. Therefore, a reliable high-throughput method would be highly valuable. Here we suggest such a method to assess tiller density using images taken with a self-designed ‘Tillerbox’. The ‘Tillerbox’ is a portable, waist-high box, containing a camera, enabling both standardised conditions and measurements independent of weather conditions. An image covers approx. 1800 cm2, which is at least ten times more than what is usually covered by manual counting. This makes our method especially suitable for tiller density analysis of heterogeneous swards. The images of swards of perennial ryegrass revealed significant differences in tiller density between diploid and tetraploid cultivars, which is in line with other studies. We anticipate our method to be a valuable tool for breeders to facilitate the monitoring of persistence of ryegrass in grassland.
  • Towards an efficient detection of genetic diversity in multispecies grassland
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Loera-Sánchez, Miguel; Käch, Damian; Studer, Bruno; et al. (2023)
  • Genetic diversity unveiled: cost-effective methods for grassland species
    Item type: Working Paper
    Käch, Damian; Käch, Damian; Loera-Sánchez, Miguel; et al. (2025)
    bioRxiv
    Permanent grasslands are predominantly composed of allogamous plant species that exhibit high levels of plant genetic diversity (PGD) within their populations. Grasslands with high PGD are more resilient to environmental stress and constitute valuable reservoirs of genetic resources for plant breeding. Therefore, monitoring PGD is the basis for detecting changes in PGD and correspondingly intervening. However, PGD monitoring is often neglected in biodiversity reports due to difficulties in taking representative samples and in using standardised and affordable indicators of PGD. Here we successfully applied two common approaches, multispecies amplicon sequencing (MSAS) and genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), to assess PGD of agronomically relevant grassland species. Using MSAS, we were able to taxonomically distinguish five species (Dactylis glomerata L., Festuca pratensis Huds., Lolium perenne L., Trifolium pratense L., Trifolium repens L.) from multispecies samples and differentiate accessions within species, with fixation index (F ST) values ranging from 0.014 for T. repens to 0.089 for L. perenne. Based on an extended L. perenne sample set containing mixtures of two cultivars at different ratios, mixtures containing both cultivars at 50% separated from the corresponding cultivars according to this ratio using MSAS and GBS. Furthermore, GBS enabled separation of samples containing two cultivars at a 75:25-ratio from the corresponding cultivars and the 50:50-ratio samples. These results indicate complementing applications of the two approaches in PGD monitoring. While we anticipate that MSAS with its cost-effectiveness could be applied to large-scale PGD monitoring, GBS with its lower detection limit could be applied to studies where cultivar composition shifts are of interest.
Publications 1 - 4 of 4