The INCREASE project: Intelligent Collections of food‐legume genetic resources for European agrofood systems

Abstract

Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation, agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition to plant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance and exploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development of both sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement, on chickpea (Cicer arietinum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), lentil (Lens culinaris) and lupin (Lupinus albus and L. mutabilis), a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources. Intelligent Collections, consisting of nested core collections composed of single-seed descent-purified accessions (i.e., inbred lines), will be developed, exploiting germplasm available both from genebanks and on-farm and subjected to different levels of genotypic and phenotypic characterization. Phenotyping and gene discovery activities will meet, via a participatory approach, the needs of various actors, including breeders, scientists, farmers and agrifood and non-food industries, exploiting also the power of massive metabolomics and transcriptomics and of artificial intelligence and smart tools. Moreover, INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment, an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach for data management and dynamic conservation. By promoting the use of food legumes, improving their quality, adaptation and yield and boosting the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sector, the INCREASE strategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative and participatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.

Comparative Flower Transcriptome Network Analysis Reveals DEGs Involved in Chickpea Reproductive Success during Salinity

“…Chickpea is the most important cool-season food legume and provides nutritional food to the growing population [ 1 , 2 ]. With climate change, chickpea will become an increasingly important crop [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Over the years, chickpea production has increased from 6.4 to 14.7 million tons due to its growing demand and economic viability [ 6 ].…”

Towards the Development, Maintenance and Standardized Phenotypic Characterization of Single‐Seed‐Descent Genetic Resources for Chickpea

“…The main aim of INCREASE is to enhance the genotypic and phenotypic characterization of genetic resources of four important food legumes linked to the European food tradition: chickpea, common bean, lentil, and lupin. The INCREASE approach involves the development of nested‐core collections of different sizes based on genetically purified accessions (Bellucci et al., 2021). The collections are designed to represent the worldwide diversity of each legume crop.…”

“…Their genetic and phenotypic characterization at different levels is also planned based on the collection size. Linking genotypic and phenotypic data will allow identification of the genes and/or genomic regions responsible for important adaptive and agronomic traits and implement genomic selection models to predict phenotypes based on genetic data (Bellucci et al., 2021).…”

“…In recent years, there has been clear recognition of the role of food legumes in the transition to a plant‐based diet, along with the importance of their wider use in the fight against climate change and to promote food security and human health (Bellucci et al., 2021). A crucial step to increase the cultivation and consumption of food legumes is the analysis of their genetic resources.…”

Towards Development, Maintenance, and Standardized Phenotypic Characterization of Single‐Seed‐Descent Genetic Resources for Lupins

“…The INCREASE project gets its name from “ In telligent C ollections of Food Legume Genetic R esources for E uropean A grofood S ystems,” and is funded by the European Union as part of Horizon 2020 (Bellucci et al., 2021). This has provided the unique opportunity to develop phenotyping data and to integrate these with genotypic information for thousands of lupin accessions from different sources (e.g., genebanks, research institutes, private companies, project stakeholders).…”