INCREASE – Intelligent Collections of Food Legumes Genetic Resources for European Agrofood Systems

Consiglio per la Ricera in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria

The “Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA)” is the leading Italian research organisation with several scientific competences in agriculture, agro-industry and forestry. It is supervised by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MiPAAF). The know-how includes different aspects of the agri-food supply chain, including genetics and physiology to mechanics and robotics, innovative techniques for the management of sustainable productions, silviculture and livestock farming, agro-food industry processes, socioeconomics aspects.

The Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (CREA OF) investigates vegetable crops with genetics, crop improvement, enhancement of biodiversity, eco-friendly cultivation techniques, and plant defense, as targeted research areas.

Role within INCREASE

The activities of CREA will consist of the in silico analysis of genomic regions involved in nitrogen-fixing activity and selection of legume varieties from WGS data through the bioinformatic pipelines developed by the consortium. Validation through inoculation of the seeds with a consortium of rhizobia strains on bean, chickpea, lentil and lupin selected accessions will be carried out. Phenotyping for grain production and some bio-morphological characters (plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per plant, weight of 1000 seeds, dry matter of the seeds) will be performed in open fields (three plots for each accession). Grain samples will be provided to other partners of the project for chemical and metabolomic analyses. Evaluations will be performed for at least two years. CREA has longstanding experiences and a high knowledge of phenotyping of grain legumes and vegetable crops, as testified by a high number of projects funded and papers published.

Main contacts

Photo of Dr Massimo Zaccardelli
Dr Massimo Zaccardelli
Principal Investigator
Photo of Dr Pasquale Tripodi
Dr Pasquale Tripodi
Researcher
Photo of Dr Teodoro Cardi
Dr Teodoro Cardi
Director of CREA OF