Project: Exploring durum wheat genotypes to minimize drought stress impact on grain yield and nutritional quality

Acronym EXPLOWHEAT (Reference Number: 2019-SECTION2-11)
Project Topic Durum wheat is an important crop in Mediterranean basin, which produces about 60% of world production, and wheat-based foods provide 18% of the daily intake of calories and 20% of proteins for humans. EXPLOWHEAT aims to identify cultivars, and/or genetic combinations, of durum wheat able to cope with limitation of natural resources by studying the mechanisms that plants face under drought and nutrient deficiency in field and field-like conditions at a multidisciplinary level. Mediterranean durum wheat landraces, including ancient grains, become particularly promising as they represent an invaluable gene pool for a number of characteristics: good adaptation to their particular Mediterranean growing regions, huge genetic diversity, and a documented resilience to abiotic stresses. EXPLOWHEAT will target the availability of water and nutrients to durum wheat, since these two factors are the most impactful for growth rate on low-resource environments. EXPLOWHEAT aims to the: i) identification of wheat genotypes/genes leading to better capacity of plants to cope with drought stress, ii) identification of wheat genotypes/genes leading to better ion homeostasis under drought stress, iii) a new definition of crop management strategies, minimizing drought stress and maximizing allocation of nutrients to grains for improved nutritional quality, and iv) on-farm validation of promising wheat lines in production systems based on a reduced use of inputs. To reach this objective, EXPLOWHEAT consortium includes highly-specialized research teams from different Mediterranean countries. EXPLOWHEAT will provide not only strategical concepts, but genetic resources, to deal with the upcoming agronomical challenges of growing world population under a changing climate. Benefits will include an improved use of Mediterranean natural resources, decreased pollution, reduced energy needs and gas emissions, and increased crop productivity and quality.
Network PRIMA
Call Section 2 Call 2019 - Multi-topic

Project partner

Number Name Role Country
1 Università della Tuscia Coordinator Italy
2 Università di Torino Partner Italy
3 Ferhat Abbas University of Setif Partner Algeria
4 Institute for Sustainable Agriculture-CSIC Partner Spain
5 Center of Biotechnology of Sfax Partner Tunisia