Breeding For Resilience: Enhancing Multi-stress Tolerance In Crops

In line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, the common agricultural policy, the EU climate policy and the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, a successful proposal will contribute to the expected impact of this destination by supporting the adaptation of agricultural production to the effects of climate change, increasing biodiversity in agroecosystems, and promoting low-input practices, thereby enhancing the resilience of agricultural systems and safeguarding food security.

Projects are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• deeper knowledge and characterisation of relevant traits for tolerance and resistance to multiple stresses, whether occurring simultaneously or sequentially, are more accessible to researchers and breeders;
• the identification of local varieties with high plasticity to cope with multi-stress conditions is enhanced, along with the development of agro-ecological practices that improve stress tolerance while supporting biodiversity-friendly cropping systems;
• the capacities to evaluate the effects of multiple stresses in crops by researchers and breeders are strengthened;
• information and recommendations on variety performance and practices to cope with multi-stress are available to advisors and farmers.

Crop production faces significant challenges due to climate change and the need to adopt low-input practices, including efficient water use, to reduce the environmental impact while ensuring food security. Issues such as salinity, extreme weather conditions like droughts, waterlogging, high temperatures, and emerging patterns of pests and diseases severely impact crops, resulting in reduced productivity and yield losses. Crop responses to multiple stresses differ from their responses to single stresses. Therefore, attention should be given to enhancing crop tolerance to combinations of multiple abiotic and biotic stresses, thus better reflecting real-life agricultural conditions.

To address these challenges, it is crucial to evaluate local crop varieties, which are often better adapted to specific environmental conditions and stresses. Identifying local varieties with high plasticity enhances crop resilience and agro-biodiversity. Developing agro-ecological practices to improve stress tolerance will further support these efforts, promoting low-input practices and enhancing the overall adaptability of agricultural systems. Additionally, broad-spectrum strategies for improving stress tolerance in crops should be developed. Smart and future-proof breeding programmes need to systematically consider characteristics that enhance crop resilience and adaptation to these demands.

Proposals should:

• provide insight into the range of mechanisms and traits that underpin crop responses to multiple stresses, whether occurring simultaneously or sequentially, guiding the development of varieties and a crop system better equipped to withstand abiotic and biotic stresses, including reduced agricultural inputs;
• increase understanding of the causality between abiotic and biotic stress factors and propose strategies to improve multi-stress tolerance;
• integrate advanced technologies to assist in evaluating GxExM (Genotype x Environment x Management) interactions in the context of multi-stress, combining multiple "omics" data sources, high-throughput phenotyping, computational modelling and artificial intelligence, to evaluate at different levels (e.g. greenhouses, experimental fields, production fields). This integration should assist breeders in developing local varieties optimised for sustainability and climate change adaptation;
• develop location-specific breeding strategies and agroecological practices, incorporating models and artificial intelligence approaches for prediction of cropping systems output, under multiple stress conditions considering climate change scenarios and climate analogues. These strategies should promote agrobiodiversity, soil health, and ecosystem services;
• deliver robust methodologies for benchmarking and communicating the performance of crop varieties when they are challenged by multiple stresses.

Proposals should provide a clear explanation and justification for the selected crop(s) in alignment with the proposal’s objectives and the topic’s expected outcomes, considering as well that activities should be carried out in a range of agronomically relevant pedo-climatic conditions. All farming systems and approaches are in scope. If proposals address organic farming, particular attention should be given to aspects related to organic varieties and organic heterogeneous materials.

Proposals may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) to, for instance, develop, test and demonstrate tools to evaluate GxExM interactions in the context of multi-stress. A maximum of 20% of the EU funding should be allocated to this purpose. Consortia need to define the selection process of organisations, for which financial support may be granted.

Proposals should ensure coherence and complementarities with ongoing relevant Horizon Europe projects, including the agroecology partnership, and capitalise on existing relevant research findings and tools, included those developed under previous research projects. Collaboration with European research infrastructures such as AnaEE-ERIC, EMPHASIS or other relevant research infrastructures^[1] is encouraged.

[1] The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/.