COUSIN has two sister projects funded under the same call: FRUITDIV and PRO-WILD.

We have much common because all three projects share a common goal: promoting the use and conservation of Crop Wild Relatives (CWRs). Through cluster activities, we will organize joint workshops, communication initiatives, and technical information exchange. This synergy will allow us to combine the knowledge from the three projects to assess the implications, effectiveness and
implementation of related policy recommendations at various policy making levels. On the COUSIN website you can find information about the joint events and activities of the three projects and the evolution of our collaboration and work

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PRO-WILD: Protect and promote Crop Wild Relatives

PRO-WILD (1 st September 2024-31st August 2029) works on 3 flagship crops: wheat, sugar beet and oilseed rape, studied both in their natural habitats and in gene banks and selected because of their importance to food security and EU farmers, and because some of their wild relatives are endemic to Europe.

The project, which will run from 2024 to 2029, will address three main themes:

  • in situ conservation, which involves the characterization and protection of genetic resources in their natural habitats;
  • ex-situ conservation, to propagate, conserve, and catalog CWRs outside their natural environments with the goal of safeguarding their genetic material;
  • pre-selection activities through which it aims to identify desirable traits of CWRs and incorporate them into in elite breeding programs to improve the genetic diversity and resilience of cultivated crops.

This ambitious project brings together 19 partners from 11 EU and associated countries covering a wide range of expertise, including ecology, conservation, genomics, pathology, microbiology, plant breeding, agriculture, and sociology.

Coordinator: Jacques Le-Gouis jacques.le-gouis@inrae.fr
Website: https://www.pro-wild.eu

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FRUITDIV: Sustainable agriculture to preserve nature’s treasures

The protagonists of FruitDiv, are CWR fruit trees and their potential for sustainable agriculture through monitoring, characterization, utilization and conservation of fruit tree genetic resource diversity with a focus on pome (Malus, Pyrus) and stone fruit (Prunus).

The project involves 26 organizations from 10 EU member states and four other countries working together since 2024 to achieve important goals such as:

  • monitoring CWRs in European gene banks;
  • characterizing CWR genetically;
  • share and develop new high-throughput phenotyping tools;
  • integrate CWRs into plant genetic resource collections and breeding programs;
  • share and develop new high-throughput phenotyping tools;
  • promote sustainable data sharing;
    develop pre-selection material and selection methodologies adapted to CWRs;
  • foster more efficient and sustainable conservation of plant genetic resources and promote the use of plant genetic resources or first-generation pre-selection material.

Coordinator Veronique Decroocq veronique.decroocq@inrae.fr
Website: https://fruitdiv.eu