Project description
Building climate-resilient cropping systems
Climate change is altering rainfall patterns, exposing crops to increasingly frequent cycles of drought and waterlogging. It is an urgent priority to develop agricultural practices that can sustain crop yields despite these variable conditions. One potential approach involves cultivating multiple crops simultaneously, a method known as intercropping, which may enhance resilience by promoting advantageous soil microbial populations. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MiBioCrop project aims to investigate whether intercropping wheat and peas can improve crop resistance to irregular precipitation patterns. Researchers will employ different molecular technologies to study how intercropping affects plant stress responses and microbial communities. The generated knowledge will help design sustainable, climate-resilient cropping systems.
Objective
Persistent precipitation regimes (PRs) characterized by frequent wet and dry spells can severely disrupt crop production by alternating patterns of drought and waterlogging stresses, posing a serious threat to future food security. In the MiBioCrop project, I aimed to explore the potential of a classical cereal/legume intercropping (IC) system (i.e. wheat/pea) as a PR-resilient cropping system and test if such resilience is mediated by IC-induced shift in wheat rhizosphere microbiome. To achieve its main objectives, MiBioCrop will be implemented through three work packages (WPs) comprising 28 specific tasks, covering both research activities and an extensive communication and dissemination strategy. In WP1, I will expose wheat monoculture and intercropped plants to different PRs under ambient or elevated atmospheric temperature in the Free Air Temperature Increase (FATI) facility. Besides measuring crop yield, soil nutritional profile, soil denitrification activity, and nitrous oxide accumulation, I will use next-generation sequencing to study the wheat rhizosphere microbiome comprehensively. To study plant stress responses to PR during IC, I will use metabolomics, transcriptomics and quantitative PCR in WP2. In WP3, I will validate the microbial role in wheat productivity by using wheat rhizosphere soil from WP1 as soil inoculum and studying wheat yield and plant responses using transcriptomics and quantitative PCR in another FATI experiment under PRs. These results will enhance our understanding of the dynamics of plant-interspecific interaction, the role of rhizosphere microbiome in plant health under PRs, and the effectiveness of legume-based intercropping as a PR-resilient cropping system. This knowledge may be used for the development of sustainable agroecosystems in the face of novel altered weather patterns caused by climate change.
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 economics and business economics production economics productivity
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture grains and oilseeds cereals
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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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.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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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.
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
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.