Valorização Económica do Cardo (Cynara cardunculus) variabilidade natural e suas aplicações biotecnológicas

Within the wide range of putative economic valorizations for Cynara cardunculus, ValBioTecCynara aims to address the natural cardoon genetic, molecular, morphologic, and biochemical variabilities, as a combined strategy to identify individuals with certain and specific required profiles. ValBioTecCynara project will explore innovative routes within traditional use of flowers (pistils) for cheese-production industry (Task 2); and develop new products based on leaves-rich bioactive compounds (Task 3 and 4). The remaining biomass will be valorized under the scope of other other research projects, in different scientific areas. The selected genotypes, and their genetic fingerprinting, will be followed and preserved, on the basis of the experimental field (Task 5) which we propose to install in Beja, Portugal, which we consider to be the basilar stone for diverse upcoming Cynara cardunculus valorizations, at national and international level.