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Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences

WISH-ROOTS

Tuning the wheat root microbiome to improve soil health and optimize rhizosphere nitrogen cycling and availability

Coordinator: John Innes Centre

Scientific Officer: Silvio Salvi

Duration: 01/04/22 - 31/03/25

Research group: Silvio Salvi, Marco Maccaferri, Roberto Tuberosa, Marco Bittelli, Serena Rosignoli

Concept - Improvement of soil health by wheat root traits. Hypothesis - Root morphological and functional traits in wheat landraces can preserve and improve target soil health markers. These beneficial traits, likely lost through wheat domestication, can be introduced in modern wheat cultivars and will be the base of an innovative strategy to restore and preserve agricultural soils. Aim - To provide genetic resources and pre-dictive models to breeders and other stakeholders for the introduction of the beneficial root traits in wheat production.