With their knowledge, experience and skills to alter the genetic makeup of plants, plant breeders have a pivotal significance to meet the needs of an expanding human population estimated to reach 9.8 billion by the year 2050. Rye breeders from Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany and Poland are actively involved in the frame of the application-oriented crop research consortium RYE-SUS. Their profound and long-standing expertise in rye breeding provides the basis for developing semi-dwarf genotypes as well as evaluating their performance under diverse environmental conditions in Europe and Canada.