H2020 SolACE Project: Solutions to Improve Agroecosystems and Crop Efficiency for Water and Nutrient Use
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2017 -2022
- Assigned Budget 6.000.000,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website Proyecto SolACE
The overall objective of SolACE is to support European agriculture in addressing the increasingly prevalent combined water and nutrient limitations in the coming decades. To this end, SolACE will design new crop genotypes and agroecosystem management innovations to improve water and nutrient (i.e., N and P) use efficiency. To achieve this objective, SolACE will focus its activities on three important European crops: potato, bread wheat, and durum wheat, and identify (i) the optimal combinations of aboveground and belowground traits to improve resource use efficiency, the genotypes with the best performance under water and N or P stress conditions, and novel practices that enhance plant-plant and plant-microbe interactions to access water, N, and P resources in conventional, organic, and conservation agriculture. SolACE will implement a dual, interactive innovation cycle based on agroecosystem management and improvement strategies. It will involve the participation of diverse end-users along the production chain, from farmers and agricultural advisors to NGOs, SMEs, and large agro-industrial companies, through the SolACE consortium and various stakeholder events.
Tested innovations will include crop genotype mixtures, legume- and cover-crop-based crop rotations, microbial inoculants, as well as improved decision-support systems and hybrids or products derived from genomic selection and participatory evolutionary breeding schemes. SolACE will implement complementary approaches, ranging from data mining, modeling, and phenotyping on high-throughput platforms and in field conditions, to experiments at research stations and farmer networks in contrasting pedoclimatic zones.
By jointly designing and evaluating selected new improvement and management strategies with end-users to increase the overall efficiency of system resource use, SolACE findings will be deemed acceptable and available for dissemination to a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including policymakers.
The collected data, using harmonized formats, have been shared in the SolACE repository and used to parameterize crop models and assess wheat and potato production in Europe based on current and projected climate for various management scenarios. Experiments with diverse germplasms of each crop have been conducted to identify key root/microbiome traits and aboveground traits (or combinations of these) that contribute to crop tolerance to combined water and nitrogen/phosphate (N/P) limitations. Roots and shoots were phenotyped in controlled and field environments across broad diversity panels for each crop. Smaller-scale field trials have also been conducted for more precise analyses of crop responses to combined stresses and simulation with coupled crop/root architecture models. New breeding strategies and tools have been designed to identify gene-derived markers for aboveground and belowground traits of crop adaptation to combined stresses.
Genomic selection (GS) models based on root traits in wheat were developed and tested. A participatory breeding strategy was applied in communities of organically grown durum wheat farmers, and changes driven by combined stress were studied in evolutionary breeding populations. New F1 hybrids of diploid potato and bread wheat were produced and tested for adaptation to combined stresses. Various management practices were also tested under controlled pre-cultivation conditions: combinations of microbial strains, crop rotations, and mixtures of durum wheat genotypes. Numerous field trials were conducted across Europe to evaluate these different management practices designed to improve stress resilience. Seven farmer networks were established to test combinations of some of the aforementioned new genotypes and management practices on farms with contrasting pedoclimatic conditions across Europe. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to perform a multi-criteria evaluation of the innovations tested in these networks. Workshops were held with stakeholders to gather feedback on the tested innovations.
Crop modeling showed a wide diversity of crop responses to climate change, either negative in southern and eastern regions of Europe or rather positive in other areas: in these cases, yield improvements due to increased CO2 and temperature are possible, assuming no other stresses occur. Experiments and model simulations with diverse wheat and potato germplasms showed under what circumstances crop, root, and microbiome traits (or combinations of both) contributed to crop tolerance to water and nitrogen and phosphorus (N/P) stresses. Significant diversity and plasticity of root traits were found, making SolACE efforts a first step forward, despite the difficulties in isolating traits that contribute to crop yield. Deep rooting emerged as an essential trait for drought adaptation and deep nutrient acquisition. Root trait-based GS models were established and validated to improve wheat yield adaptation to multiple stresses.
The F1 experimental hybrid produced in potato and bread wheat proved to be quite efficient in coping with multiple stresses under field conditions. In durum wheat, the participatory breeding strategy resulted in new populations derived from a genetically diverse population, with the participation of organic farmers from Hungary and Italy. In addition to these breeding strategies and products, the management innovations tested demonstrated greater or lesser efficiency under combined conditions of drought and N/P limitations. While the use of legumes as precrops or reduced tillage was often efficient, durum wheat genotype mixtures and formulated microbial consortia inoculants were promising, although their effect under field conditions was not always significant. Farmer participation in the project has generated interest and enthusiasm for most of the tested innovations. On-farm experiments highlighted the potential of grain legumes in rotations to reduce the carbon footprint of cereals and improve farmers' economic margins, according to LCA.
On-farm experiments showed inconsistent results for microbial inoculants and experimental potato hybrids, but farmers were interested in evaluating these innovations over a larger number of trial years. SolACE partners engaged key stakeholders beyond farmers through a range of events and engagements. Practice summaries, videos, training materials, trade press, newsletters, and policy documents are available on the SolACE website and in the Zenodo community. Further exploitation of some of the findings is currently being considered for work conducted on microbial inoculants, F1 hybrids of bread wheat and potato, as well as for durum wheat populations derived from the participatory approach.
SolACE improved our understanding of how combined water and nitrogen/potential limitations impact the yield and quality of potatoes, bread wheat, and durum wheat, both conventionally and organically grown, and the solutions to better address this situation. The inclusion of root traits identified through phenotyping of high-diversity panels in GS and new ideotypes for breeding schemes proved to be novel solutions. F1 hybrids of potato and bread wheat showed promise for combining traits associated with distinctive stress tolerance (including root).
Participatory breeding in durum wheat populations with high trait diversity has proven effective in sparking farmer interest. In addition to these solutions, various management innovations have been tested, focusing on techniques that leverage belowground interactions and biodiversity to use soil resources more efficiently: microbial inoculant consortia, genotype mixtures, or rotational legumes. Combinations of these new genotypes and management practices need to be jointly designed and evaluated on farms with relevant stakeholders across Europe, as achieved in SolACE, to ultimately achieve ecological intensification of European agriculture in the context of climate change.
The overall objective of SolACE is to support European agriculture in addressing the increasingly prevalent combined water and nutrient constraints in the coming decades by designing new crop genotypes and innovating agroecosystem management to improve water and nutrient (i.e., N and P) use efficiency. To achieve this objective, SolACE will focus its activities on three major European crops (potato, bread, and durum wheat) and identify optimal combinations of aboveground and belowground traits to improve resource use efficiency, better-performing genotypes under combined water and N or P stress, and novel practices that make better use of plant-plant and plant-microbe interactions to access water, N, and P resources in conventional, organic, and conservation agriculture.
SolACE will implement a dual, interactive innovation loop based on agroecosystem management and improvement strategies. It will involve the participation of diverse end-users across the entire production chain, from farmers and agricultural advisors to NGOs, SMEs, and larger agro-industrial industries, through the SolACE consortium and a variety of stakeholder events.
Tested innovations will include crop genotype mixtures, legume- and cover-crop-based crop rotations, microbial inoculants, as well as improved decision-support systems and hybrids or products of genomic selection and participatory evolutionary breeding schemes. SolACE will implement complementary approaches, from data mining, modeling, and phenotyping on high-throughput platforms and field conditions, to experiments at research stations and farmer networks in contrasting pedoclimatic zones. Through co-design and co-evaluation with end-users of the selected novel breeding and management strategies to increase the overall resource efficiency of the system, SolACE findings will be deemed acceptable and readily available for dissemination to a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including policymakers.
Climate change is expected to negatively impact European agriculture by affecting the water and nutrients needed for growing crops. New crop genotypes and agroecosystem management are seeking to improve this situation. Two of the expected impacts of climate change are limitations in access to water and shortages of key nutrients needed for crops. "Water is expected to become more limited in many areas of Europe, while nutrients may become less available, partly as a consequence of increased water scarcity," explains Philippe Hinsinger, senior scientist at INRAE Montpellier and coordinator of the SolACE (Solutions for Improved Water and Nutrient Use in Agroecosystems and Crops) project. Farmers also apply important nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus through fertilizers, which has significant environmental impacts.
Therefore, increasing the sustainability of European agriculture involves reducing fertilizer use, which results in more frequent situations of nitrogen or phosphorus limitation for crops. The EU-funded SolACE project aimed to overcome these obstacles by designing new crop genotypes capable of growing in these challenging conditions. The team also devised a number of management practices to support European agriculture, for both organic and conventional farming systems. “There is an absolute need to further reduce the use of these fertilizers in Europe for environmental reasons, as well as economic reasons due to their increasing and fluctuating cost,” adds Hinsinger. Innovative Crop Genotypes New crop genotypes can forage and better exploit belowground resources, such as water and nutrients at depth, or achieve higher yields while consuming less water or nutrients. “In the context of SolACE, we devoted a large part of our efforts to improving acquisition efficiency related to belowground characteristics, which was the major challenge of our project,” says Hinsinger. The team cultivated approximately 250 genotypes of bread wheat and durum wheat crops, using imaging technologies to assess root characteristics. Smaller panels of potato genotypes were also investigated.
The SolACE team also developed a new breeding strategy. Root phenotype data led to the development of genomic selection models, which were successfully tested to improve the yield of bread wheat and durum wheat crops. The consortium also used biotechnologies to design bread wheat and potato hybrids. Researchers devised a range of novel agroecosystem management practices, which were tested in pilot studies in the laboratory and subsequently through field experiments at various locations in Europe.
To further test these new strategies, the project conducted on-farm experiments in seven farmer networks across Europe and devoted considerable effort to modeling crop yields under future climate scenarios. “Using crop models in combination with future climate scenarios in different regions of Europe showed a wide diversity of crop responses,” Hinsinger explains. “These were negative in southern and eastern regions, and quite positive in many other areas: there could be yield improvements due to increased CO2 and temperature,” he adds. Policy and Future Research: SolACE outputs include a series of EIP-AGRI abstracts, videos, training materials, and publications in the scholarly and scientific press, as well as conference papers. The team also produced several policy briefs that offer key recommendations for addressing these specific challenges. “Further exploitation of some of these findings for work is currently under consideration, involving both small and large biotech companies,” Hinsinger says. "Participation in the project has sparked interest and enthusiasm for the tested innovations, especially among farmers."
- INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT (INRAE)
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