Project description
Combining three plants in one to keep up with climate change
Crops that can withstand severe heat and drought periods are in high demand. Such resilient crops are vital for food security. Conventional plant breeding cannot keep up with the major changes caused by climate change. To develop a new breeding strategy, the EU-funded TriVolve project will establish three-parent crosses in crop plants. TriVolve capitalizes on the groundbreaking discovery that plant egg cells can fuse with two sperm to create offspring with three instead of two parents (one mother and two fathers). Combining the beneficial traits of three cultivars through such polyspermy will speed up breeding processes and increase the number of chromosomes (a process known as polyploidisations). This novel crossing strategy allows hybridisation barriers to be overcome, which opens up the possibility of combining more distant varieties.
Objective
"There is an urgent need for an agricultural revolution to generate climate-smart cultivars, which combine proven qualities with novel traits that adapt crop plants to extremes, including severe heat and drought periods. Novel breeding technologies can make the difference to enable farmers to achieve high yields with resilient crops and thus secure the nutrition for the world population. In the framework of the ERC Consolidator Grant ""Building and bypassing polyspermy barriers"" we have discovered that plant egg cells can fuse with two sperm to give rise to offspring with three instead of two parents, one mother and two fathers. Our unprecedented result is a game changer in the field of plant reproduction. It can lead to a new plant breeding strategy with economic benefits expected to positively affect the social welfare of farmers as well as upstream and downstream industries related to the agricultural value chain. Three-parent crosses can transform plant breeding at different levels: First, the inheritance of genetic material from three rather than two parents allows to instantly combine beneficial traits of three cultivars thereby tremendously speeding up breeding processes. Second, three-parent crosses bypass a hybridization barrier (2), which constitutes a major limitation for regular plant breeding approaches. Third, three-parent crosses can be used to increase the number of chromosomes, a process referred to as polyploidization. Natural or technically-induced polyploidizations constitute a major factor for yield increase. The translation of three-parent crosses from the model plant Arabidopsis to crop plants using sugar beet as an experimental prototype at the premises of a breeder, and the transfer of this new breeding technology into commercial exploitation are two goals of the project TriVolve.
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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.
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.
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture agronomy plant breeding
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics chromosomes
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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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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - 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.
ERC-POC-LS - ERC Proof of Concept Lump Sum Pilot
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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-2020-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.
28359 Bremen
Germany
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.