SolACE

Solutions for improving agroecosystem and crop efficiency for water and nutrient use

SolACE's overarching goal is to help European agriculture facing the challenge to deal with more frequent combined limitations of water and nutrients in the coming decades, through the design of novel crop genotypes and agroecosystem management innovations to improve water and nutrient (i.e. N and P) use efficiency.

To achieve this goal, SolACE will focus its activities on three major European crops

potato
bread
durum wheat

- and will identify the :

optimum combinations of above- and below-ground traits for improving resource use efficiency,
best-performing genotypes under combined water and N or P stresses
novel practices that make better use of plant-plant and plant-microbe interactions to access water, N and P resources in conventional, organic and conservation agriculture.

SolACE will implement a double interactive innovation loop, based on agroecosystem management and breeding strategies, and will imply the engagement of diverse end-users, across the production chain, from farmers and farm advisors to NGOs, SMEs and larger industries in the agri-business sector, through the SolACE consortium and a range of stakeholders' events.

The tested innovations will include crop genotype mixtures, legume-based crop rotations and cover crops, microbial inoculants, as well as improved decision support systems and hybrids or products from genomic selection and participatory evolutionary breeding schemes.

SolACE will implement complementary approaches, from data mining, modelling, phenotyping in high throughput platforms and field conditions, to experiments in research stations and farmers' networks in contrasted pedo-climatic zones.

Through the co-design and co-assessment with the end-users of the selected novel breeding and management strategies to increase the overall system resource use efficiency, the findings of SolACE will be deemed acceptable and readily available for dissemination to a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including policy-makers.

Date

2017-2022

Partners

Inra - UMR Eco&Sols, Agap, Lepse Montpellier, AgroEcologie Dijon et GDEC Clermont-Ferrand
AIT - Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH Austria
CREA - Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell 'Economia Agraria Italy
FiBL - Forschungsinstitut für Biologischenlandbau Stiftung Switzerland
JHI - The James Hutton Institute United Kingdom
KU - Kobenhavns Universitet Denmark
SU - Sabanci Universitesi Turkey
SLU - Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet Sweden
UCL - Université catholique de Louvain Belgium
UE - Universidade de Evora Portugal
UHO - Universitaet Hohenheim Germany
UNEW - University of Newcastle upon Tyne United Kingdom
UPM - Universidad Politecnica de Madrid Spain
Agroscope - Eidgenoessisches Departement für Wirtschaft, Bildung und Forschung Switzerland
Arvalis - Arvalis Institut du végétal France
Con.Cer - Con.Cer. Societa' Cooperativa Agricola Italy
DCM - De Ceuster Meststoffen Belgium
ECAF - European Conservation Agriculture Federation Belgium
IT - Inra Transfert S.A. France
LEAF - Linking Environment And Farming United Kingdom
ÖMKi - Ökologiai Mezogazdasagi Kutatointezet Kozhasznu Nonprfit KFT Hungary
Solynta - Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Het Idee Netherlands
SP -Sourcon-Padena GMBH & CO KG Germany
Syngenta - Syngenta France
Agrobiota - Agrobiota Germany