Advanced tools for breeding BARley for Intensive and SusTainable Agriculture under climate change scenarios (BARISTA)
Project delivers new breeding strategies and tool kits for boosting barley improvement, leading to new barley varieties adapted to future climatic conditions. Its stakeholders are public and private barley breeders, national extension services interested to promote a more sustainable barley crop, farmers, and ultimately consumers. BARISTA will disseminate its findings and engage stakeholders through four means:
1. Via public partners: SEGES [P11], the leading agricultural advisor in DK, is a non-profit owned by the Danish farmers. In BARISTA, it will be responsible for field trials and dissemination of results to farmers with a specific focus on the improvement of nitrogen use efficiency. The Estonian Crop Research Institute [P12] is a public institute involved in breeding new varieties of barley and other crops; it will run field trials
of selected materials generated in BARISTA.
2. Via SME breeders: Agromonegros (ES) and DANKO (PL) will test genetic materials in field trials as subcontracts of P4 and P10, respectively. ISEA (IT) and APSOV (IT) join BARISTA at their own expense and make in-kind contributions by running field trials of barley cultivars for model validation (see letters of commitment).
3. Via a Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB): KWS SAAT (Germany), Boreal Plant Breeding Ltd (FI) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) have given formal expressions of interest in BARISTA (see letters of interest). They and the SMEs listed above will form a SAB that will help to direct the project, have early access to its findings, and help disseminate these.
4. Via training: BARISTA will organize an advanced training course for students and stakeholders on new predictive breeding tools, in collaboration with the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza (IAMZ, P6 subcontract), which specializes in international training in the agro-food sector.