Background

The production value of the four major Solanaceous crops – potato, tomato, pepper and eggplant – amounts to 66% of the European horticultural crop production value. Potato alone is the staple food for over 800 million people worldwide.
Currently, access to genetic variants of these four crops preserved in genebanks and the usage of these variants for crop improvement is limited. This is mainly due to the lack of information and data available to the user community to compare the plant collections and accessions held in different genebanks all over the world and to choose those best suited for their location, environmental conditions and needs.
Two major challenges need to be overcome: Firstly, the information of the plant collections and accessions held at the different genebanks has to be harmonized and strategically important traits and varieties of each crop have to be identified. Secondly, the user community of genebanks should be able to easily access the genetic diversity of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in order to use them in their daily work. In the long term, they would contribute to a more sustainable form of agriculture which is adaptable to changing environments and to the appearance of new pests.
 
 
The G2P-SOL project (Title: Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 677379.