Resilience to salinity in tomato

农业将不得不利用日益减少的可耕地面积来养活日益增长的世界人口。这就更具有挑战性了，因为我们一些最好的土壤的质量正受到威胁。盐度是一个日益严重的问题，特别是在沿海或灌溉区。由于气候变化，这些传统上肥沃的地区受到土壤盐分增加的影响，其浓度超过了当前耕作方式所能承受的水平。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方法，包括使用新的抗灾植物品种和/或用天然药剂处理植物，使其更具抗灾能力。对于植物来说，要适应像盐度和干旱这样的非生物胁迫，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养分和水分的能力至关重要。然而，我们对根系功能的了解有限，这意味着控制植物对非生物胁迫的恢复能力有限。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，有可能影响根系功能和对非生物胁迫（如高盐度）的恢复能力。然而，尽管生物刺激素在农业上有潜力，但人们对其作用机制的了解非常有限。ROOT的目标首先是提供关于如何提高作物根系对盐胁迫的恢复能力的基础知识。我们将重点研究番茄，因为它是欧洲受盐碱化威胁地区重要的大田作物，并且它有许多组织良好的资源（良好注释的基因组，遗传资源）。通过鉴定番茄的关键调控基因来控制番茄的根结构。-鉴定预测番茄根系结构适应性和耐盐性的qtl和标记。-了解生物刺激剂在盐胁迫条件下促进番茄恢复力的机制，并了解它们的作用模式。其次，ROOT将提供关于增强番茄抗非生物胁迫能力策略的实用知识，并从实验室走向现场。ROOT将有助于在受盐碱化威胁的地区开发未来的番茄栽培系统。我们在ROOT项目中使用的生物刺激剂将在短期内提高番茄的抗逆性，并将为农民在受盐度威胁的地区经营创造新的机会。在根系中发现的根系适应盐胁迫的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.