GL-TTP
GL-TTP is an international Technology Transfer Platform created to transfer knowledge and state-of-the-art technologies between research and industry in order to boost the production and quality of grain legumes.

Grain legumes: so good, yet in decline
In spite of being recognised as an essential component of sustainable agricultural systems and as a healthy alternative source of protein for animal feed and human consumption, grain legume crops are underused and in decrease around the world, particularly in Europe. Grain legume crops suffer from inconsistent yields, mostly due to poor resistance to diseases in the field, and lack of tolerance to abiotic stress.

From model to crop
The top priority of GL-TTP is to facilitate and expedite grain legume breeding programmes through the use of molecular markers. Due to complex, diverse and relatively large genomes, molecular biology and genetics studies have been slow in crop legumes. In contrast, molecular research is expanding fast in the model legumes Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus. Both species are being sequenced, and a flurry of genomic tools is being generated to facilitate gene discovery. Several studies of comparative genomics have highlighted significant syntenic relationships between legume species, which will allow the transfer of genomics data from model to crop legumes.

A broader genetic base for modern varieties
It is recognised that the genetic base of cultivated plants has narrowed down through the past thousands of years of domestication, migration bottlenecks and breeding activities. As a consequence, current varieties have less potential to respond to changing conditions, such as climate change, land degradation, water scarcity or pathogen evolution. Therefore, there is a need to re-introduce exotic genetic resources in the genetic pool of breeding programmes in order to increase the genetic diversity shuffled to generate better adapted varieties. One of the goals of GL-TTP is to facilitate the characterisation and exploitation of genetic resources for their use in international breeding programmes.

An initiative of GLIP
GL-TTP is launched by the Grain Legumes - Integrated Project (GLIP) primarily to work at the integration, assessment and commercial exploitation of the results of GLIP research. GLIP is a €24-M, 4-year European Project that involves 18 countries, 54 partners, in an effort to boost the European production of grain legumes for animal feed and human consumption. The research programme of GLIP encompasses economical, environmental, agricultural and nutritional issues of crop legumes, as well as the production of genetic resources and genomic tools in model legumes. The privileged access of GL-TTP to the molecular tools and discoveries generated by GLIP will directly benefit the members of the platform. GL-TTP is set up to work in close collaboration with the strong international AEP network of the grain legume community (European Association for Grain Legume Research; www.grainlegumes.com/).

Membership
Membership is open to research institutes and grain legume industries that want to contribute to, and benefit from, the international network of GL-TTP.

To know more
Please feel free to contact GL-TTP scientific manager, Catherine Golstein (c.golstein@gl-ttp.com), for any questions, comments or suggestions.