CLEARGENES: Cultivating the Future of Italian Agriculture
Imagine a future where Italian crops, symbols of excellence and tradition, can withstand the challenges posed by climate change. This is the ambitious goal of the CLEARGENES project, an initiative aimed at developing adaptability tools for nationally significant plants, ensuring their resilience and sustainability.
A Journey into the Heart of Agricultural Innovation
The CLEARGENES project, acronym for CLimatE chAnge Resilience GENES in Italian fruits and vegetables, is a scientific adventure involving some of Italy's most important crops: grapevine, apple, tomato, pepper, eggplant, radicchio, and endive. These plants not only represent a fundamental part of our diet but are also pillars of the Italian agricultural economy.
CLEARGENES aims to improve the resilience of these crops to climate change through a multidisciplinary approach. Using advanced technologies in genetic sequencing, phenotyping, and soil microbiome analysis, the project seeks to identify and develop new plant varieties that can thrive even in adverse environmental conditions.
The project is divided into four Work Packages (WP), each focusing on specific activities and objectives.
WP1: Resilience traits in grapevine
The first Work Package focuses on viticulture, a key sector of Italian agriculture. The goal is to develop new grapevine genotypes with greater resilience to climate change. This will be achieved through three main methodological approaches.
Firstly, a semi-diallelic crossing population of about 2000 individuals will be established from seven traditional wine grape varieties. These genotypes will be placed in two experimental vineyards, one in Friuli Venezia Giulia and the other in Salento, to evaluate their performance under different climatic conditions. Genotyping and phenotyping of these populations will allow the creation of a genomic selection model, useful for the rapid and efficient selection of additional genotypes of interest.
Secondly, existing collections of grapevines of Italic, Mediterranean, and Georgian origin will be characterized. These varieties, little known but potentially rich in resilience traits, will be analyzed at the ampelographic, biomolecular, metabolomic, and microbiological levels.
Finally, protocols for in vitro regeneration of parental varieties and accessions from the collections will be developed and optimized. This step is crucial for the application of Assisted Evolution Techniques (TEA), such as genome editing, which will further improve traditional varieties.
WP2: Resilience traits in Solanaceae
The second Work Package focuses on Solanaceae, a family of plants that includes tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. The goal is to develop varieties more resilient to abiotic stresses, such as drought and salinity, resulting from climate change.
For tomatoes, MAGIC populations, which include a wide range of genetic and phenotypic variability, will be characterized. About 200 lines out of 460 genotypes will be phenotyped for their tolerance to water stress. Genotyping of these genotypes, along with an additional collection of 500 stable lines, will allow the identification of common haplotypes. Additionally, the microbiome of the rhizosphere of genotypes with differential responses to water stress will be analyzed to understand the contribution of microbial communities to plant resilience.
For eggplants and peppers, segregating F2/F3 populations will be established and subjected to phenotypic characterization and gene expression analysis through RNA-Seq sequencing. This will identify the genes contributing to resilience to abiotic stresses.
WP3: Resilience traits in Asteraceae
The third Work Package focuses on Asteraceae, particularly radicchio and endive. The goal is to develop intra- and interspecific segregating and recombinant populations to improve resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as organoleptic and shelf-life characteristics of fresh produce.
Parental genotypes will be genotypically characterized to assess levels of homozygosity/heterozygosity and genetic similarity. Subsequently, crosses between the biotypes of the two species will be conducted to obtain 24 distinct progenies. These progenies will be genotyped and phenotyped to compare the antagonistic reproductive systems of the two species and to identify molecular markers associated with phenotypic traits of interest.
WP4: Resilience traits in Apple
The fourth Work Package focuses on the apple, one of the most important crops for the Trentino Alto Adige region. The goal is to characterize the beneficial properties of the apple through metabolomic analyses, also evaluating the effect of water stress on the main qualitative characteristics of the fruit.
A collection of apples, defined as RefPop, consisting of 500 accessions representing the genetic variability of apples in Europe, will be used. This collection will be replicated and grown under a non-irrigation regime to simulate a condition of water stress. Samples will be analyzed for total polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity, and the metabolic data will be compared with the available variome to identify genomic regions associated with these functional properties.
Involved Partners
The project involves a network of high-level academic and industrial partners:
- University of Trento: unitn.it
- ISI Sementi SPA: isisementi.com
- Landlab srl Società Benefit: landlab.net
- Blumen Group SpA: blumengroup.it
- Centro di Sperimentazione Laimburg: laimburg.it
- Claudio Quarta Vignaiolo srl: claudioquarta.it
- DiSTeBA - University of Salento: disteba.unisalento.it
- Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo: vivairauscedo.com
- EdiVite srl: edivite.it
Expected Results
CLEARGENES represents a significant step towards more sustainable and resilient agriculture. The new plant varieties developed will not only help mitigate the effects of climate change but also offer innovative solutions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management. The data generated will be made available to the scientific community and producers through a dedicated portal, accelerating the adoption of new varieties and stimulating the exploitation of genetic knowledge to improve other varieties or species. CLEARGENES is more than just a research project; it is a mission to ensure that Italian crops can continue to thrive despite the challenges posed by climate change. With the support of a network of expert partners, the project promises to provide concrete and sustainable solutions for the future of Italian agriculture. Join us on this journey towards a greener and more resilient future!