Progetto HARNESSTOM

“Harnessing the value of tomato genetic resources for now and the future”

ABSTRACT
The project “HARNESSTOM: harnessing the value of tomato genetic resources for now and the future”, funded by the EU in the frame of Sustainable Food Security SFS-2020, “Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy”, aims to demonstrate that proper use of plant genetic resources is a key factor for food quality and security and can bring innovation and benefits for all the stakeholders.
By using the knowledge acquired in previous EU-funded projects to associate phenotypes to genotypes in several tomato types from different germplasm banks and universities, HARNESSTOM wants first to gather, centralize, and standardize all the available information in a public system easily accessible by several users’ categories. Second, HARNESSTOM will develop four prebreeding programs focusing on the major objectives in this field:

1. introduce genes conferring resistance towards emerging pathogens,
2. improve the tolerance of tomato towards abiotic stresses due to climate changes,
3. improve fruit quality,
4. increase resilience of European landraces through participative breeding.

A further objective is to speed up breeding schemes and make plant breeding more efficient towards emerging needs.
The relationship between the Academia and Industry in each workpackage of the project and the participation of non-profit orgnizations guarantee that the results from the project will have an impact on industrial innovation as well as on consumers and society.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Antonio Granell (Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC, Valencia, Spagna) and include a team of experts from 22 partners of seven different countries, among which are

• Bulgaria (Maritsa Vegetable Crops Research Institute, Dr. Ivanka Tringovska),
• France (Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, Dr Mathilde Causse; Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Dr. Mohamed Zouine; Gautier Semences SAS, Dr. Clémence Plissonneau; Vilmorin & Cie, Dr. Benoit Gorguet),
• Israel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof.Dani Zamir; Top Seeds International Ltd, Dr. Liron Shalom; Phenom Networks Ltd, Dr. Yaniv Semel),
• Italy (Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie, l’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile, Prof. Giovanni Giuliano; Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Prof. Mara Ercolano; La Semiorto Sementi Srl, Dr. Mina Formisano; Universitàdegli Studi della Tuscia (Prof. Andrea Mazzucato),
• The Netherlands (Wageningen University, Dr. Yuling Bai),
• Spain (Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Prof. Antonio Granell; Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Prof. María J. Diez; Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrícolas, Dr. María J. Asins; Associacion de Productores y Comercializadores de la Tomata de Penjard’Alcala de Xivert, Mr. Mauricio Calduch; Enza Zaden Centro de Investigación SL, Mr. David Gil; Fundación Cajamar de la Comunidad Valenciana, Dr. Carlos Baixauli; Asociación Ampresarial de Investigación Centro Tecnologico Nacional agroalimentario Extremadura, Ms. Ascensión Ciruelos),
• Taiwan (National Taiwan University, Prof Kaiyi Chen; Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, Dr. Peter Hanson).

PROGRAM
H2020
CALL
H2020-SFS-2020-1
TYPE OF ACTION
IA
FUNDING
7.048.236,25 euro
START DATE
01/10/2020
LENGTH
48 months

LINK
http://harnesstom.eu/en/index.html

SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR
Andrea Mazzucato
DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITY
DAFNE-department of agricultural and forestry sciences