Cereals are critical to Switzerland's domestic food and feed supply, but production faces increasing challenges from various biotic and abiotic stressors, compounded by the ongoing impacts of climate change. The pressure on crops is even more critical given policies to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use. These threats can decrease both the quantity and quality of grain yields.
We will test and refine multiple strategies to address these challenges:

• Improving the current variety testing system to identify the best-performing options by adding more sustainability criteria.
• Developing site-specific variety recommendations that are tailored to local environmental conditions.
• Creating innovative variety mixtures that are more tolerant to diseases and more efficient in using resources like light, nutrients, and water.
• Integrating easy-to-use remote and proxy sensing tools to improve the accuracy and speed of crop monitoring.

This integrated approach will provide adaptive solutions to strengthen the resilience of cereal production, improve ecological and economic sustainability, and help the sector meet agricultural policy targets while adapting to climate change.