The European project HiDRAS : innovative multidisciplinary approaches to breed high- quality disease resistant apples

The European project HiDRAS (High-quality Disease Resistant Apples for a Sustainable Agriculture) is a collaborative effort between 11 European groups (University of Milano and University of Bologna, Italy; Plant Research International, The Netherlands; INRA Centre d'Angers, France; Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Swiss Federal Research Station, Switzerland; Horticultural Research International, U.K.; Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants, Germany; Centre de Recherches Agronomiques de Gembloux, Belgium; Warsaw Agricultural University and Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture, Poland) aimed at the identification of genetic factors controlling fruit quality. Breeders will be provided with new tools, such as molecular markers linked to fruit quality and pathogen resistance, to improve "marker assisted selection". An innovative approach based on the phenotypic and molecular characterisation of a large number of related genotypes will be adopted. New software will be developed to fully exploit genotypic, phenotypic and pedigree data, with the aim of identifying fruit quality QTLs and to follow the transmission of their alleles along the pedigrees. A large number of highly informative markers, including markers from fruit-quality-related genes will be generated and an apple genetic map with evenly distributed markers will be constructed to increase the efficiency of the QTL analysis. Consumer's needs will be tested to study the quality parameters that determine the success of a new apple variety in different European countries. In those occasions our scientific research will be presented increasing the trust of European citizens towards disease resistant apples, therefore favouring their diffusion. An apple data repository will be established to collect and share data among the participants. Initially database access will be limited but later it could be opened to the scientific community. The original and well concerted multidisciplinary approach, including apple breeding, genetics, molecular biology, statistics and bioinformatics, will ensure the achievement of the project objectives.