The BIOMEnext overall objective is to implement innovative, composite and eco-friendly farming systems, in order to enhance the resilience of Mediterranean fruit farming to climate change, a major challenge for agriculture. Climate change scenarios predict that temperatures will rise, precipitation patterns will shift leading to higher evaporative demand and decreased soil water availability, other than an increase in its salinity.
Olive was chosen as a model case study, well representing the most typical Mediterranean cultivated tree crop. The project aims to design an olive grove which combines, in a holistic logic, the valorization of traditional genotypes showing the best resilience traits, the development of new microorganism consortia, able to increase biotic and environmental stress tolerance and the introduction of new practices and remodel the traditional ones, to reduce external inputs and negative discharges to the environment. The proposed new olive growing models will aim to maintain high quantitative and qualitative levels of production, even in limiting environmental contexts, in a logic of high sustainability.
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More specifically, the project goals are:
Harnessing traditional varieties, wild olives and new bred genotypes to redesign environmentally friendly groves. We plan to continue the exploration of local varieties, ecotypes and natural olive populations from extreme environments to genomically evaluate their water and salt stress tolerance, exploiting them directly as cultivars or rootstocks and to create ‘new’ genotypes ready to use or for the introgression of traits of interest into new genotypes.
Developing new bacterial consortia and mycorrhizal inoculants to promote climate-resilient and stress-tolerant plants. We will perform shotgun metagenomics in traditional varieties, ecotypes and wild olive populations, with two purposes: 1) to find the core microbiome of olive trees, that, according to ecological theories, should be able to colonize the olive rhizosphere and roots, overcoming soil native populations, and 2) to analyze the functional capabilities of those microorganisms, which should aid in the selection of best plant growth promoters for the crop. Based on these analyses, we will suggest the most promising taxa as potential good candidates for the development of microbial inoculants, able to promote olive tree growth and resistance to stress conditions.
Building new composite eco-friendly crop systems. The purpose is to design and test new crop systems that integrate olive trees with fodder shrubs and more productive forage legume crop species. Such systems respond to current environmental, economic and social issues, with the aim of increasing the “ecosystem services and biodiversity, to adapt the small farming systems to climate change and to increase farmer incomes”. The innovative use of mixed forages can provide economic and social benefits by transferring knowledge between farmers and growers, improving their interaction and the supply chain itself.
Assessing the environmental and socio-economic impact of the proposed innovations and newly developed crop systems. We aim at assessing the environmental and socio-economic impact of the newly developed and proposed crop innovations. The impacts produced by the project actions will be evaluated and variations will be critically analyzed in terms of environmental impacts produced: Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction, water resources (precipitations, irrigation) use reduction. Economic impacts will also be evaluated, including variations in the management and production costs and selling price of products, allowing to define the best strategies to increase farm’s income, with special attention to small farms. Social impacts will be taken into account, including variation in the social conditions of the different stakeholders’ categories involved in olive cultivation.
Evaluating the new proposed growing systems under a circular bio-economy concept and a multi-actor approach. The purpose is to evaluate the impact of introducing the renewable bioresources, as defined in the project, in the management of olive groves, with technical and economic indicators. The analyses will be carried out at micro-scale (small farm) and macro-scale (territory) level, on the newly developed crop system models, aimed at ensuring, other than ecologically sustainable olive production, also economically and socially balanced development by guaranteeing farmers' income increase. Farmer incomes will be assessed, as well as the increase in product quality, thanks to the selection of more suitable varieties, the interaction plant/microbial consortia and plant/cover crops and the reduction of external inputs (and emissions) in crop management.
