Intelligent Collections of Food Legumes Genetic Resources for European Agrofood Systems (INCREASE).

OBJETIVOS

The general objective of INCREASE is to facilitate efficient and effective conservation and use of plant genetic resources in food and agriculture (i.e., termed here as GenRes), in order to promote agrobiodiversity and to improve their sustainable use. INCREASE will enhance the status of the GenRes of four important food legumes that have significant option value for EU agriculture (chickpea, common bean, lentil, lupin), and promote their conservation and use in Europe. It will thereby contribute to development of methodologies and tools that can be applied to, and should benefit, all kinds of GenRes, particularly crops. This will be achieved by:

1. Improvement of food-legume GenRes data management and sharing, by development of optimised databases, data-management solutions and visualisation tools, to promote access and use;

2. Development of “Intelligent Collections" of GenRes that can be used to design tools for conservation management, to efficiently explore the available diversity, and facilitate the access to users through a participatory approach;

3. Development and exploitation of innovative methodologies for analysis of phenotypic and genotypic data that will be obtained during the project or that have already been established by  INCREASE partners;

4. Development and dissemination of knowledge manifold requirements of users and stakeholders, by targeting traits of interest for adaptation to European agro-ecosystems and for the agri approaches

5. Development, testing and dissemination of best practices for dynamic management of GenRes across European and non-European institutions and initiatives, involving: data integration, sharing and traceability, and integration between approaches;

6. Testing of decentralised information technology approaches for data sharing and germplasm conservation, using innovative approaches for distribution and co-production.

The main task to be developed by Centro de Investigación Agroforestal de Albaladejito (CIAF-IRIAF) will be the characterization of a wide lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) germplasm collection in the facilities of the Bank of Plant Germplasm of the center, which is currently the institution responsible for the conservation and management of the Spanish Active Collection of Lentil Germplasm.