Exploring European carrot diversity through public-private partnerships in EVA Carrot

摘要

The European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) aims at ensuring the conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources in Europe through collaborative activities. The ECPGR European Evaluation Network (EVA) was establishedin 2019 with financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and brings together different stakeholders in public-private research partnerships at the pre-competitive stage, to jointly generate standardized characterization and evaluation data on crop accessions present in European genebanks, which are often poorly characterized and consequently underutilized. In this way, EVA promotes sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, harnessing existing agrobiodiversity to facilitate the adaptation of European agriculture to climate change and to contribute towards achieving related sustainable development goals (SDGs). One of five crop-specific EVA networks, EVA Carrot (https://www.ecpgr.cgiar.org/) joins 14 partners from eight European countries, including eight private breeding companies. Following up on the activities of CarrotDiverse, the consortium evaluated 60 carrot accessions from four different genebanks over two years in multilocation trials in the field, greenhouse and laboratory to create in-depth characterization and evaluation data with an emphasis on biotic stresses and agronomic traits of interest for breeders. Genotyping these accessions using a SNP genotyping array, genotyping by sequencing (GBS) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) generated valuable data for population genetic studies. All network partners bring their relevant expertise to the project and thus, working together on these evaluations, the network jointly creates a largepool of knowledge, which will be useful in developing carrots suitable for diverse agro-ecologies and able to cope with the challenges of a changing climate. Here we present initial results from the EVA Carrot network and perspectives for an improved management and valorization of genetic resources.