Breeding for resilience: focus on root-based traits

With increasing effects of climate change and a shift towards low(er) input production systems, there is the need for crops that are capable of capturing resources more efficiently and are resilient to abiotic stresses.

The root system and its interaction with soil biota is crucial for nutrient and water acquisition as well as for the capacity of plants to adapt to changing environments and to be more tolerant against pests and diseases. Phenotypic plasticity is key for plants to respond to varying soil conditions and highly dynamic distribution of soil resources. The size and architecture of the root system also determine the allocation of carbon in the soil. Breeding for root traits is therefore a promising strategy to increase plant stress resilience while also enhancing soil carbon sequestration.

Proposals should:

• Identify root traits that increase resource efficiency of plants in different environments, taking into account beneficial plant – microbe interactions and the restitution of plant-fixed carbon to the soil;
• Increase our knowledge on the (molecular and biochemical) plasticity of root responses and their metabolic mechanisms to environmental cues;
• Improve existing and/or develop new root phenotyping tools (including image analysis protocols) to be used in controlled and on-field conditions, thereby overcoming the root data bottleneck;
• Develop strategies to implement “root breeding”, i.e. select for desirable root characteristics and exploit the genetic variation in root traits.

Activities should be carried out in a range of agronomically relevant soil conditions.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.