Unlocking the Potential of Grasspea for Resilient Agriculture in Drought-prone Environments (UPGRADE)

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Grass pea is a pulse crop with remarkable tolerance to drought as well as flooding, making its seeds an important local food source in several tropical countries, especially Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea as well as India and Bangladesh. In times of weather extremes causing crop losses, grass pea often remains one of the most available foods and the cheapest source of protein, helping people survive during food shortages. The mounting challenge of climate change increases the need for crops that can be grown sustainably and withstand weather extremes. Through its 8000-year history of cultivation grass pea has been a part of human diets - from Neolithic sites in the Balkans, through the bronze-age middle east, the Roman Empire and medieval Europe until the modern day. But despite its value for food and nutritional security, grass pea carries the stigma of a potentially dangerous food. Its seeds and leaves contain a neurotoxic compound that can cause a debilitating disease known as neurolathyrism. This disease only appears in people who are malnourished and consume large amounts of grass pea over several months. Yet the fear of neurolathyrism, which has been known since antiquity, has led to grass pea being undervalued by farmers, breeders and scientists, making it an 'orphan crop'. There is no significant international trade in grass pea and too little research to develop the potential of this resilient, sustainable source of protein. Grass pea is able to fix nitrogen from the air (through symbiosis with nodulating bacteria), can efficiently use soil phosphate through its mycorrhizal associations, can penetrate into hard, heavy soil and is relatively tolerant to pests and diseases. All these characteristics make it an ideal crop for agriculture where farming inputs (fertiliser, pesticides, irrigation, etc.) are limited, as is the case in most smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa. We therefore believe that improved grass pea varieties can have a significant impact beyond the millions of people who already cultivate it in Africa today and could become a crucial sustainable food source for many more. Our project aims to remove the limitations of this crop by using the tools and resources we have already developed in our previous research to breed new varieties that are safe to consume, high-yielding, nutritious and resilient to environmental stress. We have identified new low-toxin variants with lower beta-ODAP contents than any existing varieties. In addition we have sequenced and assembled the grass pea genome and transcriptomes under stress and non-stress conditions and we are working to enable modern crop improvement methods on the back of these. Through this research partnership we have access to grass pea lines representing the global diversity of the crop and those that are locally adapted to East Africa and to expertise on smallholder agriculture and seed systems.The UPGRADE project will build on this foundation and create a partnership to translate bioscience research advances on grass pea into new varieties with tangible benefits for smallholder farmers. Besides this, our research will generate valuable data on the performance of grass pea and the physiological role and regulation of the production of the toxin in the plant. Through a better foundational understanding, we and other researchers will be better able to direct future breeding efforts and deliver the promise of grass pea.