GLIP extended to non-EU countries
The EU GRAIN LEGUMES Integrated Project (GLIP) has enlarged its membership following a successful submission to the EU call related to ‘Targeted Third Countries’.
Grain legumes (peas, faba beans, common beans, groundnut, etc) are important throughout the world; outside the EU they generally comprise an important component of agricultural systems and are often a significant component of human diets. Collaboration between the original and the new partners in GLIP will provide mutual benefits, extending the range of species and environmental conditions studied, and so widening the potential reach of information from model systems.
The 10 new TTC contractors in GLIP are from Russia, Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Tunisia, Morocco, Brazil, China and South Africa. They will complement the activities of GLIP especially in the areas of (i) biotic and abiotic stress, especially important in the Mediterranean regions, and also (ii) comparative genetics, with expertise in legume species less developed in the previous consortium.
The specific objectives of GLIP with the extended partnership are fourfold:
> to use the diversity of Medicago truncatula in the Mediterranean Basin to better understand drought stress response;
> to understand the impact of grain legumes diseases in the Mediterranean Basin;
> to extend the number of species studied in the comparative genomics of grain legumes;
> to facilitate the isolation and characterisation of pea genes that impact on crop architecture or performance.
Source: T. H. N. Ellis and A. Schneider.
