Accelerating the development of breeding tools for perennial crops, specifically fruits and nuts

Expected Outcome:Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:cutting-edge, scalable and accessible tools and methods are available to accelerate the breeding of productive, qualitative, climate-smart and environment-friendly perennial crops, enhancing the competitiveness of the sector and fostering biodiversity;researchers and breeders have access to user-friendly and innovative plant breeding tools that allow faster enhancement of sustainability traits, including pest and disease resistance, stable yield and quality, water use efficiency and resistance to abiotic stressors. Scope:Despite the crucial role that woody perennial crops such as fruits and nuts play in our diets, as well as their importance for global economies, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, traditional breeding methods for these crops remain slow and labour-intensive due to long gestation periods (juvenile phase) and complex genetics. This hinders the timely development of perennial breeds to cope with challenges like climate change, pests and diseases, impacting among others crop productivity. Developing user-friendly tools that can be effectively transferred to breeders will boost the impact and efficiency of breeding programs for perennial crops.Proposals should:develop new and/or improved tools and methods aimed at shortening generation time and overall breeding cycle in perennial crops, while enhancing sustainability traits such as pest and disease resistance, yield stability, quality and adaptation to climate changes;assess the scalability and accessibility of the tools and methods and ensure the provision of the required dataset and info for their effective implementation;implement genomic selection tools and models – taking into account interactions between genotypes and environment - into actual breeding schemes for perennial crops and study the empirical results of these models to determine their accuracy, reliability, and appl