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Project title: Innovations in plant variety testing in Europe to promote the introduction of new varieties better adapted to changing biotic and abiotic conditions and more sustainable cultivation methods INVITE
Project title in English: INnovations in plant VarIety Testing in Europe to foster the introduction of new varieties better adapted to varying biotic and abiotic conditions and to more sustainable crop management practices INVITE
Financing institution: European Commission
Program name: HORIZON 2020
Project number: 817970
Project coordinator: INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE AGRONOMIQUE (INRA), France
Project coordinator from IO: Dr. M. Lewandowski
Implementation period: 01.07.2019-30.06.2024
Contract No.: 817970
Description:
The INVITE project aims to promote the introduction of new varieties with high resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, high adaptation to sustainable management practices and high resource use efficiency (RUE) through improved variety testing and better information for stakeholders on variety performance under different contrasting production conditions. Examples of this will be major crop species that can be multiplied, are used for food and feed and are the subject of high breeding activity in the EU.
To achieve this overall goal, INVITE:
1. Identify plant traits and bioindicators related to plant EWZ, adaptation to sustainable cropping systems and resistance to changing and more challenging environmental conditions (WP1);
2. Develop new phenotyping and genotyping tools to assess bioindicators associated with improved adaptation to more sustainable crop management practices and changing climatic conditions; and to increase the speed, accuracy and efficiency of variety testing (WP2 and WP3);
3. Build crop models and statistical tools to predict the performance of varieties in different agro-ecological environments and crop management practices, taking into account economic viability for producers and other supply chain actors (WP4);
4. Improve existing variety testing methodologies for variety characterisation (distinctiveness, uniformity and stability – DUS) and performance testing (including, but not limited to, value for cultivation and use – WUZ) to increase speed, precision and efficiency and, where appropriate, to integrate sustainability criteria (WP5);
5. Define new procedures for managing reference collections (WP5);
6. Propose organisational innovations to improve variety testing networks, taking into account their socio-economic and environmental impacts (WP6);
7. Provide policy makers with recommendations to improve the harmonisation of DUS and WUZ tests at EU level, including, where appropriate, new traits in DUS and WUZ tests and for testing of heterogeneous plant material (WP5 and WP6);
8. Facilitate interoperability and data exchange within the consortium and create a prototype of a common database for storing data on phenotypic and genotypic diversity and provide a user-friendly interface for Evaluation Offices (BO) and Post-Registration Organisations (PR) (WP7);
9. Design a prototype decision support system for variety selection based on the expectations of breeders and farmers, which will include variety performance predictions for various environmental and production conditions (WP4 and WP8);
10. Disseminate results and new technologies to appropriate users who will evaluate and verify them (WP8).
