Development and Preparation of Eggplant Pre-Bred Materials for Adaptation to Climate Change

2017

THE GLOBAL CROP DIVERSITY TRUST

INV. COMPETITIVA PROYECTOS

Prohens Tomás Jaime

The present propasal is aimed at developing and preparing pre-breed materials of eggplant ( Solanum melongena) containing introgressions of wild relatives far incorporating them in breeding pipelines in arder to develop new eggplant materials with improved adaptation to climate change. The project will use the wealth of pre-bred materials obtained in the former project "Uti/ization of crop wild re/atives in eggplant breeding far adaptation to climate change" (Dec. 2013-Dec. 2016), where interspecific hybrids with wild species from the primary, secondary and tertiary genepools, advanced backcross generations of these hybrids towards the cultivated eggplant, and introgression lines with the wild relative S. incanum were obtained. The team is composed by tour partners consisting of an international research center (World Vegetable Center; coordinator), with headquarters at Taiwan, and three universities from lvory Coast (Université Félix Houphouet-Boigny), Sri Lanka (University of Peradeniya) and Spain (Universitat Politécnica de Valencia; coordinator),) which successfully developed the former project, . The project will also count on the collaboration of five breeding companies (East-West Seed, Meridiem Seeds, Callivoire, Hayleys Agriculture Holdings Limited, and Novagenetic) from different parts of the world and an important focus on world regions where climate change will probably have a majar impact. The partners and collaborating companies have a wide experience in eggplant diversity studies and breeding. The project will involve further development of materials using already available advanced backcross materials, multiplication of seeds of materials of interest for future evaluation, the characterization of materials far relevant traits of commercial interest and far tolerance to drought and biotic stresses, the introduction of materials in breeding pipelines of the collaborating companies, as well as a capacity building component. Materials and data obtained will be made available to users using the standard material transfer agreement (SMTA) adopted under the lnternational Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources far Food and Agriculture. As a result of the project, it is expected that eggplant materials carrying introgressions from wild relatives and prepared far the development of new eggplant varieties adapted to climate change will be obtained.