Context

The climatic scenario predicted for the Mediterranean areas poses specific challenges for agricultural productions. The vulnerability of agricultural sectors to the modification of agro-climatic conditions depends on both the expected regional climate change and the sectors’ ability to adapt. For their perennial status, fruit tree crops are particularly exposed to environmental change. Quality and quantity of fruit productions are strongly affected by genotype x environment interactions.

Objectives

The FREECLIMB project is built to match topic 2.1 of the PRIMA framework in developing smart and sustainable farming systems in Mediterranean countries, to preserve natural resources (water and land use) by increasing production efficiency. This will be pursued by advancing knowledge on mechanisms of plant environmental adaptation and biotic/abiotic stress resilience. The project targets major fruit tree species with the aim of improving the availability of breeding and germplasm material adapted to limited external resources (input) and future climatic scenarios predicted for the Mediterranean area, through the characterization and exploitation of local biodiversity. The project will focus on key ideotypes elaborated in collaboration with Fruit Farming Actors (FFAs, breeders, nurseries, growers) with the core objective of providing a toolkit (diverse germplasm, tools and methods) to accelerate exploitation, breeding and selection of resilient varieties in key traditional fruit crops of Mediterranean agriculture (stone fruits such as peach, apricot and almond; Citrus spp.; grape and olive).

Expected impacts

Considering Southern countries climate as representative of changing scenarios predicted for Northern ones, FREECLIMB will strongly benefit from collaboration between the South and North Mediterranean shores: for each species targeted by the project at least two countries are involved one from the North and one from the South. The balanced composition of the consortium ensures an equal footing approach with particular attention to co-ownership of results, mutual interest and shared benefits.