Legume Generation
The goal of Legume Generation is to boost the breeding of the major food and feed legume crops in Europe to support the EU Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies by making legume crops more competitive on European farms and in value chains. This will increase crop diversity and enable all the other benefits of legumes. Legume Generation is an innovation action. Innovation is about taking risks to improve how things are done. Our project is structured and focused to directly support our breeding partners and associates as risk-taking innovators.
Project consortium
This project is coordinated by Lars-Gernot Otto, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) and Donal Murphy-Bokern (scientific coordinator).
The partners are:
- Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK, Germany)
- Donal Murphy-Bokern (DMB, Germany)
- University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU, Austria)
- Julius Kuhn-Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (JKI, Germany)
- Universita Politecnica Delle Marche (UNIVPM, Italy)
- Donau Soja (DS, Austria, Serbia, Ukraine)
- Radboud University (SRU, Netherlands)
- KWS Lochow GmbH (KWS, Germany)
- International Hellenic University (IHU, Greece)
- Saatzucht Gleisdorf GmbH (SZG, Austria)
- University of Hohenheim (UHOH, Germany)
- Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL, Germany)
- Danko Hodowla Roslin (Danko, Poland)
- Aarhus University (AU, Denmark)
- RAGT Seeds (RAGT, France)
- Lidea Seeds, (Lidea, France)
- Keyserlingk Institut (Keyserlingk, Germany)
- Palacký University Olomouc (UP, Czech Republic)
- Serida – Regional Service for Agrofood Research and Development (SERIDA, Spain)
- University of Basilicata (UNIBAS, Italy)
- ESKUSA GmbH (ESKUSA, Germany)
- Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences (IPG, Poland)
- Euroseeds (EURS, Belgium)
- Agrobioinstitute (ABI, Bulgaria)
- John Innes Centre (JIC, United Kingdom)
- Germinal Holdings Ltd (GER, United Kingdom)
- Aberystwyth University (ABER, United Kingdom)
- Earlham Institute (EI, United Kingdom)
- Wellspring EMEA (formally IP Pragmatics Ltd (IPP, United Kingdom)
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, United States of America)
- WBF Agroscope (AGS, Switzerland)
- AgResearch (AGR, New Zealand)
Project summary
The Legume Generation consortium will invest in innovation that boosts the breeding of legumes in Europe by combining the entrepreneurial focus of breeders with the broad inventiveness of the supporting research base. Six species-oriented breeder-led innovation communities will link practical breeding with the research-base in a transdisciplinary framework. They lead the innovation work and each is focused on the breeding of a single species or species type:
- soya bean (Glycine max);
- lupin (Lupinus spp);
- pea (Pisum sativum);
- lentil (Lens culinaris);
- phaseolus bean (Phaseolus spp. e.g., ‘common’bean);
- and white and red clover (Trifolium repens and T. pratense).
Our innovation communities will be open to all relevant actors and provide a direct route for the dissemination of results to other users and interested stakeholders.
Project duration: September 2023 – February 2028
Acknowledgements
Legume Generation (Boosting innovation in breeding for the next generation of legume crops for Europe) has received funding from the European Union through Horizon Europe under grant agreement No 101081329 and co-funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) from the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee. It also receives support from the governments of Switzerland and New Zealand.
