Project description
Revolutionising crop screening for sustainable agriculture
In the race to meet the European Commission’s Farm to Fork targets, the agrochemical and breeding sectors face a critical challenge. Current screening technologies for assessing water and nutrient use efficiency in crops are not only destructive and costly but also time-consuming, hampering progress in sustainable agriculture. In this context, the ERC-funded ADSOILS project will revolutionise crop screening by developing and validating an advanced artificial soil technology. Building on the success of the ERC Consolidator Grant SENSOILs, the project will fabricate a scalable solution. It aims to validate its potential for commercial use, providing a groundbreaking tool for discovering agrochemicals and genomic regions crucial for sustainable farming.
Objective
AdSoils project aims to evaluate, validate, and develop artificial advanced soil technology for its commercial exploitation as a tool for
screening crops from belowground.
As part of the Farm to Fork strategy, the European Commission aims at reduced “nutrient losses of at least 50% by 2030, while
ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility. This is expected to lead to a reduction in fertiliser use of at least 20%”. The breeding and
agrochemical sectors are now seeking ways for crops to acquire water and nutrient more efficiently, supplying seeds, compounds and
inoculum that reduce soil contamination and make crops more resilient to climate change. Assessing the effectiveness of such
strategies is a major bottleneck because current screening technologies are destructive costly and time consuming.
Within the ERC consolidator grant 647857 “SENSOILs”, an artificial soil that becomes transparent during watering has been
successfully developed. This technology, suited for small scale laboratory research, has shown great potential, enabling the discovery
of new forms of mobility by soil bacteria and mapping root induced chemical gradients at microscale resolution.
Adsoils project proposes to move a step further and to demonstrate that the AdSoils solution can be fabricated and applied in
commercial screens for the discovery of agrochemicals and genomic regions involved in water and nutrient use efficiency. The
project will identify cost-effective fabrication routes enabling a close mimic of natural soils and will produce a sufficient volume to
validate the soil prototype with industrial end-users.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-POC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
48160 Vizcaya
Spain
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.