ORHIZON

This application aims at supporting a European network to prepare a response to the EU call « HORIZON-CL6-MAN-2021-00-00: Breeding for resilience: focus on root-based traits » that should open in April 2021 and close in the autumn. We request support to 1) organize a meeting of the consortium (15 k€) and 2) fund support by a consulting firm to build up the project. A consortium made of 16 public research groups (incl. 6 French units) and 4 seed companies was initiated to answer this EU call for project. It brings together the best European research teams on the topic of the call providing all the tools and expertise to tackle the scientific questions we want to address, as well as the West African center of excellence for dryland cereals (CERAAS, Senegal) to extend the outputs of this project to sub-saharan Africa. Our consortium will allow us to use pluridisciplinary approaches ranging from plant genetics to crop modelling and soil sciences (incl. microbial ecology). Several goups involved in this project have already successfully worked together in projects, some of which involved private companies. Dr Laurent Laplaze (Research Director at IRD, Montpellier) will coordinate this consortium. He has a recognized expertise in root biology and experience in the management of international projects. Root traits have been widely researched at the molecular and physiological level, but their impact on crop productivity and resilience in field conditions is still poorly known. Our project will target root traits to improve yield and resilience of cereals crops (maize, wheat and sorghum) and propose new agroecological cereal-based agrosystems that require less inputs (water and fertilizers). We expect this project to generate high impact scientific outputs as well as societal impacts in plant breeding (new cereal varieties), agronomy (new agrosystems), environment (reduction in European agriculture environmental impact, carbon sequestration) and technology (new phenotyping technologies). Our consortium involves 6 teams from 3 French research institutes (IRD, INRAe and CIRAD) as well as 3 French seed companies. It will be coordinated by a French researcher and this will contribute to reinforce the position of France in the European research community.