As agricultural systems face more and more constraints due to climate change, identifying and developing new crop cultivars able to make production more resilient is a priority. In this context, root systems play a major role as an essential component of the tolerance against abiotic stress (water deficit or excess, nutrition deficiency) and for their contribution to carbon storage in soils.

Addressing root traits for breeders, geneticists and agronomists is a real challenge that needs efficient tools: root phenotyping tools both in field and controlled conditions, genetic tools with a set of relevant markers and genetic resources and modelling tools to extrapolate the results in other environments and agricultural contexts.

This is exactly the ambition of Root2Res: to develop such tools and use them to define and test innovative genotype ideotypes able to enhance the tolerance to abiotic stress and carbon sequestration in soils.

To achieve these objectives, Root2Res gathers an interdisciplinary team of 22 partners and will work during 5 years on cereals (barley, wheat), potato, legumes (faba bean, pea, lentils) and sweet potato. Beyond the deep scientific investigations, Root2Res also includes strong links with stakeholders (breeders, farmers, and policy makers) and an ambitious dissemination and exploitation plan for the benefits of all end users of the results produced: most notably breeders, researchers, and farmers.

Root2Res has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101060124. Its work is supported by Innovate UK through the Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme Grant Agreement no. 101060124 and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) grant no. 23.00050.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), European Research Executive Agency (REA) or Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Neither the European Union nor any other granting authority can be held responsible for them.