EUROOT

Enhancing resource Uptake from Roots under stress in cereal crops.

The overall goal of EURoot is to help farmers to face both climate change, which is expected to result in increasingly uneven rainfall, and meet the societal demand for sustainable agriculture with reduced use of water and fertilizers. EURoot objective is to enhance the cereal plant capability to acquire water and nutrients through their roots and maintain growth and performance under stress conditions. Making use of join phenotyping and modelling platforms, EURoot will conduct a suite of experiments designed to better understand and model: i. The genetic and functional bases of root traits involved in soil exploration and resource uptake, ii. The bio-geochemical properties of the soil, including beneficial association with mycorhizal fungi, influencing extraction of nutrient and water by the root system and iii. The plant signalling processes involved in soil environment sensing and responsible for adaptive root system response enhancing soil exploration and resource acquisition. The EURoot project is based on a tripod of interactive WPs addressing specific complementary questions– i.e. WP1, genetics of root traits, WP2, root:soil interactions, WP3, root : shoot signalling-, and on two platforms WPs allowing to share innovative phenotyping methods relevant to field conditions and linked to crop performance (WP4) and multi scale modelling (WP5) aiming at integrating root architecture, resource dynamics in the soil and root uptake, and inner plant signalling processes, to design root ideotypes allowing enhanced resource acquisition under stress. Results will be readily translated into screening methods, models and tools (markers, biochemical signatures) to guide the challenging breeding for improved root traits allowing enhanced water and nutrient capture. It will allow the further development of novel cereal cultivars with higher resilience, tolerating erratic rainfalls and reduced fertilizer application, while achieving their yield potential.

Coordinator
Centre De Cooperation International En Recherche Agronomique Pour Le Developpement (France) 
 
Other participants
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM-UNIVERSITA’ DI BOLOGNA
- Dip. di Scienze Agrarie - DIPSA
- Resp. Scientifico: Prof. Roberto Tuberosa
Centre De Recerca Agrigenomica Consorci Csic-Irta-Uab-CRAG (Spain)
Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Switzerland)
Forschungszentrum Juelich Gmbh (Germany)
Institut National De La Recherche Agronomique-INRA (France)
Stichting Katholieke Universiteit (Netherlands)
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn (Germany)
The James Hutton Institute (UK)
Universite Catholique De Louvain (Belgium)
The University Court Of The University Of Aberdeen (UK)
Lancaster University (UK)
The University Of Nottingham (UK)
Uniwersytet Slaski (Poland)
Societa Produttori Sementi Spa (Italy)
Delley Samen Und Pflanzen Ag (Switzerland)
Presens Precision Sensing Gmbh (Germany)
Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics Pty Ltd (Australia)
Incorporated Administrative Agency Japan International Research Center For Agricultural Sciences (Japan)
The Pennsylvania State University (USA)

Start date 01/01/2012
End date 31/12/2015
Duration 48 months
Project Reference 289300
Project cost 4.751.655 EURO
Project Funding 2.999.996 EURO
Area FP7-COOPERATION-KBBE
Subprogramme Area KBBE.2011.1.2-05: Root signalling, growth and development under abiotic stress conditions
Contract type Collaborative project targeted to a special group (such as SMEs)