Crop Wild Relatives utilisation and conservation for sustainable agriculture

Crop Wild Relatives, i.e. the COUSINs of domesticated crops, represent a natural source of genetic variation. The COUSIN consortium recognizes the value of CWRs for agriculture, but also the challenges with their utilisation. Through the COUSIN Readiness Levels we will demonstrate a roadmap for the use of CWRs in breeding and farming. We will work with five flagship crops: wheat, barley, pea, lettuce and brassicas. With these exemplary crops we demonstrate how current challenges of stakeholders from farm to fork can be overcome using CWRs in formal and on-farm breeding programs. The COUSIN consortium has unique expertise, data and breeding material involving CWRs of all flagship crops. This allows us to cover the translational pathway from the identification as wild plant to a market-ready crop in a five year project. For each flagship crop, we design and implement a breeding toolbox and identify relevant traits of its wild relatives required to resolve current and emerging challenges of stakeholders. Effective characterisation protocols are designed and will guide conservation of the naturally occurring functional and genetic diversity of the target traits across Europe. Characterisation will occur in- and ex-situ through high-throughput phenotyping, chemotyping and genotyping of target traits and the associated microbiomes. Conservation measures cover in-situ reserves and ex-situ collections with the widest possible diversity of target traits. For easy access of target trait information and corresponding accessions, a user-friendly data portal will be developed. The data will be offered for integration into national/international repositories. Through on-farm pilots and actual breeding sites realised across Europe, the value of CWRs will be demonstrated to stakeholders with direct applications for breeders and farmers to provide climate change-resilient crops as a vital means towards sustainable production systems.