Activated GEnebank NeTwork

Projektinformationen

AGENT

ID Finanzhilfevereinbarung: 862613

DOI

10.3030/862613

Projekt abgeschlossen

EK-Unterschriftsdatum 20 April 2020

Startdatum 1 Mai 2020

Enddatum 30 April 2025

Finanziert unter

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Gesamtkosten

€ 7 258 537,50

EU-Beitrag

€ 7 199 787,50

Koordiniert durch

LEIBNIZ - INSTITUT FUER PFLANZENGENETIK UND KULTURPFLANZENFORSCHUNG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - AGENT (Activated GEnebank NeTwork)

Berichtszeitraum: 2024-05-01 bis 2025-04-30

Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts

Plant Genetic Resources (GenRes) offer great potential for climate-resilient crop improvement, yet their use remains limited due to inefficiencies in identifying and integrating valuable traits. Despite 7.4 million accessions stored in over 1,750 genebanks worldwide, the challenge of effective utilization persists—largely due to past technological, financial, and data infrastructure barriers.

The AGENT project aimed to transform European (and international) genebanks from passive repositories into active bio-digital resource centers. By purifying selected materials and adding detailed genotypic and standardized phenotypic data (“precision” and “bridging” collections), AGENT enabled more systematic use of GenRes. Focused on wheat and barley, its methods and tools can be applied broadly across other crop collections, extending the project's impact well beyond its original scope.

Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse

The AGENT project built a collaborative network of European gene banks (GBs) to assess and utilize the genetic diversity of wheat and barley collections. Each partner developed a “precision collection” (~500 accessions) based on passport data, revealing both unique diversity and unexpected redundancy. “Bridging collections” (~150 accessions) from similar European environments enabled integrated analysis using curated historical phenotype (C&E) data, now made publicly available.

A third set of standard cultivars (“general checks”) was grown across all sites to assess environmental influences and support data comparability. Biotic and abiotic stress data were collected for precision collections, and cross-GB genomic predictions were conducted using genotypic data from 5,354 wheat and 7,482 barley accessions.

The project identified GB-specific selection signatures and, by applying k-mer GWAS, novel disease resistance genes for powdery mildew in Swiss wheat. Field trials for phenology and stress response were completed, and breeder/farmer evaluations continued. A FAIR-compliant data platform and portal, with integrated tools for data analysis and visualization, is now fully operational and linked to EURISCO.

Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)

AGENT aimed to create a sustainable and systematic approach for building a genomic and phenomic diversity atlas for genetic resources (GenRes), using barley and wheat as examples. The project established an interactive network of gene banks (GBs) to promote long-term use of conserved GenRes beyond the project’s duration.

AGENT demonstrated how improved collaboration between conservation, characterization, and use can enhance the efficiency and services of European GBs—an objective long pursued by the GenRes community. However, lasting impact depends on continued and increased national funding for GenRes collections.

A key goal of AGENT was to support climate-resilient crop production by giving breeders better tools to access GenRes information. Using dense genotype data, the project assessed the uniqueness and redundancy of European wheat and barley collections, offering a blueprint for scaling this work to all accessions.

For the first time, AGENT GB partners jointly curated and digitized historical characterization and evaluation (C&E) data, and collected new phenotypic data on stress tolerance traits. This enabled genomic predictions across collections, allowing future GenRes selection to be more targeted and efficient.

New functionalities in EURISCO and associated web tools will facilitate multi-purpose selection of GenRes, accelerating pre-breeding and supporting global food, feed, and product needs.

AGENT aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals—especially SDG15 (biodiversity), SDG1 (no poverty), and SDG2 (zero hunger)—by enhancing agrobiodiversity and enabling climate-resilient crop development, thus supporting food security and farmer livelihoods globally.

AGENT Experimental Field at partner institution CREA-CI

AGENT logo