Resilience to salinity in tomato

农业将不得不利用日益减少的耕地面积来养活日益增长的世界人口。这就更具挑战性了，因为我们一些最好的土壤的质量正受到威胁。盐碱化是一个日益严重的问题，特别是在沿海或灌溉地区。由于气候变化，这些传统肥沃的地区遭受土壤盐分增加的影响，土壤盐分浓度高于当前耕作实践所能容忍的浓度。在不久的将来，这些地区将不再适合种植粮食，除非我们采用新的生产做法，包括使用新的有弹性的植物品种和/或用使其更有弹性的天然制剂处理植物。对于植物来说，要对盐碱和干旱等非生物胁迫具有弹性，根系是至关重要的。根是使其结构和生理适应干旱和盐胁迫的主要器官。它们的表现对整个植物吸收营养和水分的能力至关重要。然而，我们对根的功能知之甚少，这就意味着我们控制植物对非生物胁迫的抗逆性的能力有限。近年来，我们开始发现根构型、胁迫QTL以及植物根与菌根的相互作用的作用和重要性。生物刺激剂的新发展表明，它有可能影响根系的功能和对非生物胁迫(如高盐度)的恢复能力。然而，尽管生物刺激剂具有农业潜力，但人们对生物刺激剂的作用机制了解非常有限。根的目的首先是提供关于如何提高作物根系对盐胁迫的适应能力的基础知识。我们将重点关注番茄，因为它是欧洲受盐碱化威胁地区的一种重要的大田作物，它拥有许多组织良好的资源(注释良好的基因组、遗传资源)。根需要解决的关键方面：-通过识别番茄中的关键调控基因来控制番茄的根构型。-识别预测番茄适应根构型和对盐胁迫的抗逆性的QTL和标记。-了解生物刺激剂在盐分胁迫条件下促进番茄抗逆性的机制，并了解它们的作用模式。第二，根将为增强番茄对非生物胁迫的抗逆性提供实用知识，并从实验室走向田间。Root将有助于在受盐碱化威胁的地区发展未来的番茄栽培体系。我们在根中使用的生物刺激剂在短期内将有助于提高番茄的抗逆性，并将为农民在盐碱化威胁下的地区生产创造新的机会。从长远来看，在根中发现的适应盐胁迫的QTL和标记将有助于培育更具抗逆性的番茄品种。

Agriculture will have to feed an increasing world population, using a decreasing arable land surface. This is all the more challenging, since the quality of some of our best soils is under threat. Salinity is an increasing problem, in particular in coastal or irrigated areas. Due to climate change, these traditionally fertile areas suffer from increases in soil salinity, reaching concentrations higher than tolerated by current cultivation practices. In the near future these areas will no longer be suitable for cultivating food unless we adopt novel production practices, including the use of novel resilient plant varieties and/or treating plants with natural agents that make them more resilient. For plants to be resilient to abiotic stresses like salinity and drought, the root system is of vital importance. Roots are the primary organs that adapt their architecture and physiology to drought and salt stress. Their performance is key to the ability of the whole plant to recruit nutrients and water. However, we have limited knowledge of how the root functions and this translates into a limited capability to control plant resilience to abiotic stress.In recent years we have started to discover the role and importance of root architecture, stress QTLs and the interaction of plant roots with mycorrhiza. Novel developments in biostimulants show that it is possible to affect root functioning and resilience towards abiotic stress such as high-salinity. However, despite the potential for agriculture, there is very limited knowledge on the mechanisms through which biostimulants act. The goal of ROOT is firstly to provide fundamental knowledge on how to improve the resilience of crop root systems towards salinity stress. We will focus on tomato because it is an important field crop in European areas threatened by salinization, and it has many well-organized resources (well annotated genome, genetic resources).Key aspects to be addressed by ROOT:- Control tomato root architecture by identifying key regulating genes in tomato.- Identify QTLs and markers that are predictive for adaptive root architectures and resilience to salt stress in tomato.- Understand the mechanism by which biostimulants contribute to tomato resilience under salinity stress conditions, and understand theirmode of actionSecondly, ROOT will provide practical knowledge on strategies for reinforcing tomato resilience towards abiotic stress, and go from the lab to the field. ROOT will contribute to developing future cultivation systems for tomato in areas threatened by salinization. The biostimulants that we work with in ROOT will contribute to tomato resilience in the short term, and will create novel opportunities for farmers to operate in areas which are under threat of salinity. The QTLs and markers for root adaptability to salt stress discovered in ROOT will contribute to more resilient tomato varieties in the longer term.