Accelerating the development of breeding tools for perennial crops, specifically fruits and nuts

Despite the crucial role that woody perennial crops such as fruits and nuts play in our diets, as well as their importance for global economies, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, traditional breeding methods for these crops remain slow and labour-intensive due to long gestation periods (juvenile phase) and complex genetics. This hinders the timely development of perennial breeds to cope with challenges like climate change, pests and diseases, impacting among others crop productivity. Developing user-friendly tools that can be effectively transferred to breeders will boost the impact and efficiency of breeding programs for perennial crops.

Proposals should:

• develop new and/or improved tools and methods aimed at shortening generation time and overall breeding cycle in perennial crops, while enhancing sustainability traits such as pest and disease resistance, yield stability, quality and adaptation to climate changes;
• assess the scalability and accessibility of the tools and methods and ensure the provision of the required dataset and info for their effective implementation;
• implement genomic selection tools and models – taking into account interactions between genotypes and environment - into actual breeding schemes for perennial crops and study the empirical results of these models to determine their accuracy, reliability, and applicability and improve their effectiveness for commercial settings;
• validate the tools across different species or breeding objectives to ensure reliability and replicability and develop standardized protocols and guidelines for their use in consultation with breeders to facilitate the effective adoption and utilisation of the tools/methods;
• evaluate the newly developed tools and methods for potential trade-offs, unintended outcomes and potential effects on the environment.

All breeding approaches are in the scope of this topic. Proposals should target fruit and/or nut crops[[ According to the FAO Indicative Crop Classification (ICC) presented in the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020 (Annex 4 - Group 3, under the voice ’Fruit and nuts’), with the exclusion of berries.]].

Proposals may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) to, for instance, cross-test the tools developed in different species and facilitate the engagement of SMEs for testing in commercial settings.

Proposals should build on the results of relevant projects funded under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe and ensure collaboration with relevant ongoing projects.

Proposals are encouraged to consider, where relevant, the data, expertise and services offered by European research infrastructure[[The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/.]] in the environment, biological and food domains.

The projects under this topic are relevant to the EU policies related to the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food by promoting plant breeding innovations, including new genomic techniques (NGTs), the Commission communication on: Building the future with nature: Boosting Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing in the EU[[COM (2024)137 final.]] and the Life Sciences Strategy.