Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PANTHEON (Novel Approaches for Plant Health Monitoring)
Reporting period: 2019-11-01 to 2022-10-31
Monitoring plants’ health status, verifying diseased plant material and identifying elite genotypes that respond better to stress in the field has become a necessity, but it is still a challenging open problem. Abiotic stress effects on plants are very complicated to monitor as the associated adaptation responses are very complex and require dedicated methods to detect at the early stages of stress onset. Addressing this challenge would lead to the improvement of agricultural practices that include germplasm selection and associated products. Furthermore, so far control strategies for reducing the spread of infected material are largely limited to the production and use of certified plants. Hence, efficient, easy to use, affordable and reliable detection systems for various pathogens represents another major research endeavor. As current monitoring approaches have largely failed to meet the above demands of current agriculture and lack accuracy, in PANTHEON our aim is to achieve a breakthrough by relying on a different and inter-disciplinary approach by building a network of Academic and SME partners with expertise that cuts across disciplines. Inspired by basic and recently defined plant physiology concepts, our vision in PANTHEON is to develop an integrated broad solution for monitoring and assessing plant health and identify elite individuals that can be used in breeding programs. Our pipelines will enable the early monitoring of imposed biotic or abiotic stressors by applying beyond the state-of-the-art remote sensing approaches coupled with spectroscopy-based methods allowing high spatialization of results during abiotic stress and biotic threats. We will also develop nucleic acid-based detection tools combined with integrated platforms for the label-free, fast and sensitive analysis of subtle changes in DNA and RNA profiles. These approaches will be complemented by a non-invasive fluorometry approach and standardized quantitative chemical analyses. Finally, we will explore the power of advanced computational approaches to identify specific spectral properties, manage datasets and integrate data arising from all these complementary approaches.
The overall aim of PANTHEON is to create a fundamentally different paradigm of designing and implementing systems for health monitoring inspired by biochemical and biophysical properties of plant cells. In the long term, this paradigm shift can trigger the development of supporting technologies related to the specification, testing and refinement of such systems and approaches, and more specialized platforms for detecting various threats.
The overall aim of PANTHEON is to create a fundamentally different paradigm of designing and implementing systems for health monitoring inspired by biochemical and biophysical properties of plant cells. In the long term, this paradigm shift can trigger the development of supporting technologies related to the specification, testing and refinement of such systems and approaches, and more specialized platforms for detecting various threats.
So far, the work performed includes:
A) The establishment of remote and lab monitoring pipelines for abiotic stress with emphasis on early stages of stress management. The monitoring examined scenarios of some of the most important stress perturbations related to water deficit (drought), soil salinity (salt stress) and global warming (heat), but the data were inconclusive and further experiments and correlations need to be made.
B) The establishment of remote and lab monitoring pipelines for biotic stress with emphasis on early stages of plant-pathogen (viral and viroid) interactions. The monitoring has so far examined the most relevant scenarios of viral or viroid, fungal and bacterial infections and has led to the development of novel tools and platforms for the early identification of infection in grapevine.
C) Dissemination and training activities achieved through the secondments of staff, creation of new and lasting research collaborations and transfer of knowledge.
A) The establishment of remote and lab monitoring pipelines for abiotic stress with emphasis on early stages of stress management. The monitoring examined scenarios of some of the most important stress perturbations related to water deficit (drought), soil salinity (salt stress) and global warming (heat), but the data were inconclusive and further experiments and correlations need to be made.
B) The establishment of remote and lab monitoring pipelines for biotic stress with emphasis on early stages of plant-pathogen (viral and viroid) interactions. The monitoring has so far examined the most relevant scenarios of viral or viroid, fungal and bacterial infections and has led to the development of novel tools and platforms for the early identification of infection in grapevine.
C) Dissemination and training activities achieved through the secondments of staff, creation of new and lasting research collaborations and transfer of knowledge.
Our novel approaches ultimately aim to provide a holistic solution to the problem of early detection by providing a set of invasive and non-invasive methods for either field or lab monitoring with various degrees of field applicability, complexity and combinatorial usage.
PANTHEON is expected to generate new knowledge and make advancements to the state of the art in several key areas that will enhance the expertise of all partners and enable cross-sector and cross-discipline knowledge sharing. A strongly cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary network promotes exposure to the market needs and exchange of new concepts, methods and approaches. This project will bring together experts with similar goals, from different parts of the world, from various disciplines and academic partners, who often identify first abiotic stress mechanisms or novel pathogenic threats and produce the detection protocols, with the industry that makes monitoring products and eventually uses these products.
The project will increase the awareness of all stakeholders, including the public, about the problems in sensitive and accurate monitoring of plant health in real-time and their suggested solutions.
From an economic viewpoint, it is anticipated that all 3 participating SMEs will directly benefit from the activities of PANTHEON, as protocols for early monitoring and defining threats to plant’s health are of immediate and high interest to SMEs involved, but also eventually to breeders, companies and all nurseries working with similar plant species. In addition, there are planned, direct academic-SMEs collaborations with the aim of producing products that will be commercialized and thus reach end-users. Besides, climate change repercussions on viticulture are being markedly sensed due to soil salinization, water shortage and increased temperatures which affect growth, development and yield of grapevine as well as grape organoleptic and aromatic quality. These parameters will be further exacerbated by spreading of viral, fungal or other pathogenic infections with devastating impact on local and global economies. Hence, our approaches will contribute to offsetting these threats to economy and society.
From a scientific point of view, there are at least three areas of scientific boost: 1. Transfer of knowledge and tools (new germplasm, protocols for defining and monitoring early stress responses, primers and probes, diagnostic methods, etc) between participants. 2. Access to novel biological material to be screened for possible adaptations and identification of tolerant ones and the responsible genes/mechanisms in future studies 3. Training events improving the expertise of involved personnel and annual meetings. The projected outcomes will provide a paradigm for various stress scenarios determination, identification of pathogens and verification of pathogen-free material that can be easily extended to other plant species/conditions providing a general platform for direct exploitation by various research actors.
Given the structure of the consortium the size and geographical distribution of participants, an impact at the social level is also expected. In the great majority of the countries involved the agricultural sector has significant contribution to the national GDP and more importantly agriculture in these countries affects a significant portion of their national and regional activities. Grapevine (Greece, Tunisia, Italy, France, Portugal) and research on Brassica (Italy, France) occupies a large area of the respective participants’ countries and many people in these countries live on such crops. In these ways, project results could impact society in a pertinent way, and can lead to progress in societal challenges such as food security and transition to a biobased economy.
PANTHEON is expected to generate new knowledge and make advancements to the state of the art in several key areas that will enhance the expertise of all partners and enable cross-sector and cross-discipline knowledge sharing. A strongly cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary network promotes exposure to the market needs and exchange of new concepts, methods and approaches. This project will bring together experts with similar goals, from different parts of the world, from various disciplines and academic partners, who often identify first abiotic stress mechanisms or novel pathogenic threats and produce the detection protocols, with the industry that makes monitoring products and eventually uses these products.
The project will increase the awareness of all stakeholders, including the public, about the problems in sensitive and accurate monitoring of plant health in real-time and their suggested solutions.
From an economic viewpoint, it is anticipated that all 3 participating SMEs will directly benefit from the activities of PANTHEON, as protocols for early monitoring and defining threats to plant’s health are of immediate and high interest to SMEs involved, but also eventually to breeders, companies and all nurseries working with similar plant species. In addition, there are planned, direct academic-SMEs collaborations with the aim of producing products that will be commercialized and thus reach end-users. Besides, climate change repercussions on viticulture are being markedly sensed due to soil salinization, water shortage and increased temperatures which affect growth, development and yield of grapevine as well as grape organoleptic and aromatic quality. These parameters will be further exacerbated by spreading of viral, fungal or other pathogenic infections with devastating impact on local and global economies. Hence, our approaches will contribute to offsetting these threats to economy and society.
From a scientific point of view, there are at least three areas of scientific boost: 1. Transfer of knowledge and tools (new germplasm, protocols for defining and monitoring early stress responses, primers and probes, diagnostic methods, etc) between participants. 2. Access to novel biological material to be screened for possible adaptations and identification of tolerant ones and the responsible genes/mechanisms in future studies 3. Training events improving the expertise of involved personnel and annual meetings. The projected outcomes will provide a paradigm for various stress scenarios determination, identification of pathogens and verification of pathogen-free material that can be easily extended to other plant species/conditions providing a general platform for direct exploitation by various research actors.
Given the structure of the consortium the size and geographical distribution of participants, an impact at the social level is also expected. In the great majority of the countries involved the agricultural sector has significant contribution to the national GDP and more importantly agriculture in these countries affects a significant portion of their national and regional activities. Grapevine (Greece, Tunisia, Italy, France, Portugal) and research on Brassica (Italy, France) occupies a large area of the respective participants’ countries and many people in these countries live on such crops. In these ways, project results could impact society in a pertinent way, and can lead to progress in societal challenges such as food security and transition to a biobased economy.