A new Horizon Europe project, FRUITDIV, which stands for ‘Exploiting the untapped potential of fruit tree wild diversity for sustainable agriculture’ was launched in Bordeaux, France, from 29 January to 1 February 2024. Coordinated by INRAE and integrating 29 partners from 14 European countries, this project focuses on Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) of well-known fruit trees of the genus Malus (apples), Pyrus (pears) and Prunus (apricots, cherries, almonds). CWR are a potential source of untapped genetic diversity for important traits such as resistance to pests and diseases, tolerance of salinity or drought, and adaptation to marginal lands, new environments, or fluctuating climatic conditions affecting fruit quality and production.

The project foresees a very integrated and extensive array of activities, from exploration of genetic resources in the European historical hotspots of diversity to field phenotypic and genetic (genomic) characterization and preservation in ex-situ collections. Overall, FRUITDIV's multi-stakeholder approach, involving geneticists, foresters, germplasm curators, farmers and citizens, will encourage in situ and ex situ conservation of crop wild relatives and promote sustainable farming practices across Europe.

OptFORESTS was represented at the FRUITDIV kick-off meeting by our coordinator, Santiago C. González-Martínez. He presented the general objectives of OptFORESTS, identified shared objectives, in particular for the species common to both projects (cherry), exchanged views on suitable phenotyping protocols for the characterisation of reproductive traits and discussed innovative ways to exploit wild genetic resources in pre-breeding or low-input breeding strategies. This rich exchange will continue throughout the duration of FRUITDIV, as Mr González-Martínez became a member of its Scientific Advisory Board.