The INCREASE project: Intelligent Collections of food-legumegenetic resources for European agrofood systems


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Elisa Bellucci, Orlando Mario Aguila, Saleh Alseekh, Kirstin Bett, Creola Brezeanu, Douglas Cook, Lucía De La Rosa, Massimo Delledonne, Denise F. Dostatny, Juan J. Ferreira, Valérie Geffroy, Sofia Ghitarrini, Magdalena Kroc, Shiv Kumar Agrawal, Giuseppina Logozzo, Mario Marino, Tristan Mary-Huard, Phil McClean, Vladimir MEGLIČ, Tamara Messer, Frederic Muel, Laura Nanni, Kerstin Neumann, Filippo Servalli, Silvia Străjeru, Rajeev Varshney, Marta W. Vasconcelos, Massimo Zaccardelli, Aleksei Zavarzin, Elena Bitocchi, Emanuele Frontoni, Alisdair Fernie, Tania Gioia, Andreas Graner, Luis Guasch, Lena Prochnow, Markus Oppermann, Karolina Susek, Maud Tenaillon, Roberto Papa. (24/8/2021). The INCREASE project: Intelligent Collections of food-legumegenetic resources for European agrofood systems. Plant Journal, 108 (3), pp. 646-690.
Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation,agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition toplant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mit-igation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance andexploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development ofboth sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement, on chickpea (Cicer ariet-inum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), lentil (Lens culinaris) and lupin (Lupinus albusandL. mutabilis),a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources.Intelligent Collections, consistingof nested core collections composed of single-seed descent-purified accessions (i.e., inbred lines), will bedeveloped, exploiting germplasm available both from genebanks and on-farm and subjected to differentlevels of genotypic and phenotypic characterization. Phenotyping and gene discovery activities will meet,via a participatory approach, the needs of various actors, including breeders, scientists, farmers and agri-food and non-food industries, exploiting also the power of massive metabolomics and transcriptomics andof artificial intelligence and smart tools. Moreover, INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment,an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach fordata management and dynamic conservation. By promoting the use of food legumes, improving their qual-ity, adaptation and yield and boosting the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sector, the INCREASEstrategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative andparticipatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.

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