Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PANTHEON (Novel Approaches for Plant Health Monitoring)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-11-01 al 2024-10-31
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 have enabled 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 have also developed 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. Finally, we explored the power of advanced computational approaches to identify specific spectral properties, manage datasets and integrate data arising from all these complementary approaches.
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. In the future we plan to implement this pipeline to other economically important plants (e.g lemons)
C) Dissemination and training activities achieved through the secondments of staff, creation of new and lasting research collaborations and transfer of knowledge.
The established pipelines but mainly the various secondments, especially from the academic sector to the industrial, have led to the publication of numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles that will help advance the field of plant health monitoring and control. The inter-disciplinary collaborations forged through the project have resulted in a great exchange of technical and academic knowledge that will help each partner further advance in their own field.
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. In the future we plan to implement this pipeline to other economically important plants (e.g lemons)
C) Dissemination and training activities achieved through the secondments of staff, creation of new and lasting research collaborations and transfer of knowledge.
The established pipelines but mainly the various secondments, especially from the academic sector to the industrial, have led to the publication of numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles that will help advance the field of plant health monitoring and control. The inter-disciplinary collaborations forged through the project have resulted in a great exchange of technical and academic knowledge that will help each partner further advance in their own field.
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 has indeed generated new knowledge and made advancements to the state of the art in several key areas that enhances the expertise of all partners and enables cross-sector and cross-discipline knowledge sharing during the project but also in the future. A strongly cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary network promotes exposure to the market needs and exchange of new concepts, methods and approaches. This project has brought 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 has increased 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, all 3 participating SMEs have directly benefitted 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, the planned, direct academic-SMEs collaborations achieved the production of products that will or have been 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 have contributed 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 have provided 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) occupies a large area of the respective participants’ countries and many people's lives depends on it. 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 has indeed generated new knowledge and made advancements to the state of the art in several key areas that enhances the expertise of all partners and enables cross-sector and cross-discipline knowledge sharing during the project but also in the future. A strongly cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary network promotes exposure to the market needs and exchange of new concepts, methods and approaches. This project has brought 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 has increased 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, all 3 participating SMEs have directly benefitted 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, the planned, direct academic-SMEs collaborations achieved the production of products that will or have been 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 have contributed 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 have provided 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) occupies a large area of the respective participants’ countries and many people's lives depends on it. 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.