The ABSTRESS project will work during five year in revolutionising the way in which new plant varieties are produced with the aim to create crops which resist droughts and/or infection with a type of soil fungus called Fusarium. In particular, the information obtained from studying the model plants will then be applied to the breeding of new pea varieties.

The ABSTRESS ('Improving the resistance of legume crops to combined abiotic and biotic stress') project, which is funded in part with almost €3 million the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), and it brings together researchers from 13 participating institutions across the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary and the United Kingdom, seeks to revolutionise the way in which new plant varieties are produced by using molecular and computational techniques to identify processes associated with the way drought and disease combine to make crops' life doubly difficult. The information obtained from studying the model plants will then be applied to the breeding of new pea varieties.

The researchers will use a clover-like plant as a model to develop the approach. Under laboratory conditions, hundreds of these plants will be subjected to drought and/or infection with a type of soil fungus called Fusarium. Fusarium was chosen as an example of disease stress because this type of infection affects the way in which plants can mobilise water and so the damage it causes is compounded during drought conditions. The information obtained from studying the model plants will then be applied to the breeding of new pea varieties.

Pea plants are being studied initially as they are well characterised genetically. Peas, like other legumes, have a key role as a sustainable source of protein in both human and animal diets. In addition, they can replace imported soybeans, which currently represent over 75% of feedstock protein in the EU.