Project description DEENESFRITPL Observing ancient barley to enhance future yield resilience The future demand for plant products within the context of climate change and the subsequent degradation of arable lands require solutions for production even in unfavourable environments. Northern European barley landraces have demonstrated a superior capacity to adapt to marginal soils and to acquire and allocate essential micronutrients. Through their study, the EU-funded AGENT project will attempt to identify the genetic control of nutrient stress tolerance and advance our knowledge of adaptive traits conferring nutrient use efficiency. The project will provide quantitative information, a predictive understanding of nutrient stress tolerance and new breeding material. It aims to expand the cultivation of other major cereals and to stabilise yields in previously unproductive soils. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective The goal of this project is to exploit ancient Northern European landraces and improve the ability of the important cereal, barley, to acquire and utilize nutrients from the soil more efficiently. Climate change pressures and degradation of arable lands are expected to increase the need to produce feed and food even in unfavorable environments, such as marginal soils with inherent nutrient limitations. Thus, it will be a major breeding focus to select traits associated with enhanced crop robustness in order to secure the future demand for plant products. In this context, recent work has demonstrated a superior capacity of Northern European barley landraces, adapted to marginal soils, to acquire and allocate essential micronutrients. This project aims to advance our knowledge of adaptive traits conferring nutrient use efficiency. This will be achieved by bridging disciplines of plant genetics and plant nutrition, not only by unravelling functions of individual genes, but also by capturing the compensatory adjustments at the transcriptome and molecular physiology levels, preserved in landraces but seemingly lost from modern elite cultivars. The overall scientific objective is to identify the genetic control of nutrient stress tolerance, and specifically to: (i) use exome capture sequencing to identify candidate genes involved in nutrient deficiency tolerance; (ii) study the transcriptional responses of these genes under nutrient stress and their dynamics with time after stress recovery; (iii) describe in detail the physiological responses contributing to improved nutrient stress tolerance of major cereal crops. The proposed project will deliver quantitative information and a predictive understanding of nutrient stress tolerance and will provide new breeding material. The findings will act as an exemplar for other major cereals to expand cultivation and stabilize yields in marginal previously unproductive land. Fields of science agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologyagricultural genetics Keywords Landraces micronutrients nutrient use efficiency marginal land manganese transporters rhizosphere photosynthesis Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2018 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator THE JAMES HUTTON INSTITUTE Net EU contribution € 224 933,76 Address Errol road invergowrie DD2 5DA Dundee United Kingdom See on map Region Scotland Eastern Scotland Perth & Kinross and Stirling Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
