The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish water bodies in the world. Eutrophication is a major concern in the Baltic Sea due to the leakage of nutrients to the sea with agriculture being the primary source. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most widely grown crop in the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and thus promoting sustainable agriculture practices for wheat cultivation will have a major impact on reducing pollution in the Baltic Sea. This approach requires identifying and addressing key challenges for sustainable wheat production in the region. Implementing new technologies for climate-friendly breeding and digital farming across all surrounding countries should promote sustainable intensification of agriculture in the region. In this review, we highlight major challenges for wheat cultivation in the Baltic Sea region and discuss various solutions integrating transnational collaboration for pre-breeding and technology sharing to accelerate development of low input wheat cultivars with improved host plant resistance to pathogen and enhanced adaptability to the changing climate.Abbreviations -DDT, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane; DK, Denmark; ECPGR, European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources; EE, Estonia; FI, Finland; HCB, hexachlorobenzene; HCH, hexachlorocyclohexane; ICM, Integrated Crop Management; IWYP, International wheat yield potential; LT, Lithuania; N, Nitrogen; NPPN, Nordic plant phenotyping network; NUE, nitrogen use efficiency; PL, Poland; PPP, plant protection product; SE, Sweden; STB, Septoria tritici Blotch; WUE, water use efficiency. † These authors contributed equally and are presented alphabetically by their last name. 442

Organic production is one of the fastest growing food sectors globally. However, average yield in organic vegetable production is up to 33% lower than in conventional production. This difference could be due to higher fertilization rates in conventional, compared to organic, farming. We aimed to compare yield and quality characteristics of carrots produced under equal nitrogen fertilization rates over four years in organic and conventional conditions. We found a 14.5% higher marketable, and 10.0% lower discarded, yield in the organic compared to the average conventional treatments. In addition, carrots managed organically had 14.1% lower nitrate and 10.0% higher vitamin C content than carrots managed conventionally. There were no convincing effects of cultivation system on the nitrogen, total sugar, or dry matter content of carrots. Organically managed carrots were free of pesticide residues, while several residues were found in carrots managed conventionally. Our study reveals that organic management of carrots may exceed that of conventional methods in yield and several quality characteristics, while being free of pesticide residues. Organic fertilizer gave an advantage over mineral fertilizer, when equal rates of nitrogen were used in both production systems.

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Untargeted metabolomic strategy was chosen to investigate as many small metabolites as possible in a collection of 13 varieties of conventionally grown spring and winter wheat and organic wheat (Triticum aestivum). Metabolites were separated by high-performance liquid chromatography on a reversed-phase column (RP-HPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). The procedure includes extraction of metabolites followed by chromatographic separation using the linear gradient of aqueous formic acid and acetonitrile with subsequent identification of compounds by MS/MS. Discrimination of the metabolomic patterns of different wheat varieties was achieved by principal component analysis (PCA). Results of PCA indicated clear differences in the patterns of wheat varieties.The winter wheat grown in conventional conditions and the spring wheat grown in organic conditions differed from the spring wheat grown in conventional conditions by the higher content of carbohydrates. It could be explained by osmotic stress resistance. Varieties grown under organic conditions could be well distinguished from others by the results of PCA, which points to the existence of an impact of different farming systems.