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Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation, agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition to plant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance and exploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development of both sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement, on chickpea (Cicer arietinum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), lentil (Lens culinaris) and lupin (Lupinus albus and L. mutabilis), a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources. Intelligent Collections, consisting of nested core collections composed of single-seed descent-purified accessions (i.e., inbred lines), will be developed, exploiting germplasm available both from genebanks and on-farm and subjected to different levels of genotypic and phenotypic characterization. Phenotyping and gene discovery activities will meet, via a participatory approach, the needs of various actors, including breeders, scientists, farmers and agri-food and non-food industries, exploiting also the power of massive metabolomics and transcriptomics and of artificial intelligence and smart tools. Moreover, INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment, an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach for data management and dynamic conservation. By promoting the use of food legumes, improving their quality, adaptation and yield and boosting the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sector, the INCREASE strategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative and participatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.

The replacement of synthetic chemical herbicides and traditional plastic sheets is a major challenge of modern horticulture in view of a sustainable weed management. In the first step of this research, we tested the weed control efficacy of two biodegradable polymers, chitosan and galactomannan, applied to the soil surface as spray mulching, with or without the addition of charcoal as a light masking agent, and five essential oils with recognized herbicide properties. The results showed the ability of chitosan in reducing the number and the biomass of annual plants, regardless of the addition of charcoal and essential oils. In the second step, we tested the efficacy of one or three days of false seeding to increase the effectiveness of chitosan against seed germination. The results showed, on average, a reduction of 79% of annual weed presence after three days of false seeding. In both steps, the microbial biomass and three indicators of microbial activity (i.e., basal respiration, FDA hydrolysis activity, and D-glucosamine-induced respiration) were measured in the soil under the experiments in order to investigate possible alterations of soil biological activity induced by the treatments. The results provided no evidence of negative impact of the treatments on soil microbial biomass and activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last three years, more than 300 landraces belonging to different plant species have been the main focus of an Italian valorization research project (AgroBiodiversità Campana, ABC) aiming at analyzing, recovering, preserving, and collecting local biodiversity. In this context, phytosanitary investigation plays a key role in identifying potential threats to the preservation of healthy seeds in gene banks and the successful cultivation of landraces. The surveillance carried out in this study, in addition to highlighting the expected presence of common species-specific pathogens such as Ascochyta pisi in peas, Ascochyta fabae in broad beans, and Macrophomina phaseolina, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. phaseoli, and Xanthomonas fuscans subsp. fuscans in beans, pointed to the presence of novel microorganisms never detected before in the seeds of some hosts (Apiospora arundinis in common beans or Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Stemphylium vesicarium in broad beans). These novel seedborne pathogens were fully characterized by (i) studying their morphology, (ii) identifying them by molecular methods, and (iii) studying their impact on adult crop plants. For the first time, this study provides key information about three novel seedborne pathogens that can be used to correctly diagnose their presence in seed lots, helping prevent the outbreaks of new diseases in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diagnostic survey of seedborne fungal pathogens is fundamental for symptomless material stored in gene banks to avoid the diffusion of pathogens by germplasm distribution and propagation. In this work, seeds of Southern Italian landraces of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) belonging to the gene bank at CREA (Italy) were inspected to assess their phytosanitary status. The phytopathological analysis revealed the presence of the most common pathogens associated with common bean seeds such as Fusarium spp., Macrophomina phaseolina, Rhizoctonia solani, Colletotrichum lindemuthianum and Diaporthe/Phomopsis complex. However, new fungi able to completely inhibit seed germination were also observed. The most aggressive were isolated, and the morpho-pathological characterization, DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis allowed us to define the strains as Botryosphaeria dothidea CREA OF 360.4 and Diplodia mutila CREA OF 420.36. These two plant pathogens are generally associated with grapevines and other fruit trees. Pathogenicity tests were carried out along with a transmissibility test in which the transmission of the pathogens to the seedlings was proven. Host range experiments revealed the ability of these pathogens to infect crops such as pepper and melon. To our knowledge, this is the first time that B. dothidea and D. mutila were detected on the common bean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has led to the spread of plant pathogens in novel environments, causing dramatic crop losses and economic damage. Botryosphaeriaceae represents a massive fungal family, containing a huge number of plant pathogens, which are able to infect several hosts. Among them, Macrophomina phaseolina is a necrotrophic fungus, responsible for several plant diseases, including the soft stem rot of common bean, crown rot on strawberry and charcoal rot of several legumes. Here, Macrophomina, causing crown charcoal rot in chickpeas, was isolated from symptomatic plants in Cicerale (SA), Campania, South Italy. Morphological and molecular characterization was carried out and pathogenicity tests were performed. Phylogenetic analyses were performed comparing Macrophomina strains coming from different geographic areas and hosts. The experiments confirmed the pathogenicity of the isolate CREA OF 189.2 on chickpea, while host range highlighted the polyphagous nature of this strain; thus, symptoms were reported on lentils, common bean and cantaloupe. The multidisciplinary approach allows us to increase the knowledge about this emerging pathogen. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on Macrophomina phaseolina from chickpeas in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]