About Eu-Sol
Find out more about this project.
An introduction to the aims of EU-SOL and how we plan to achieve them. Plus read about the organisations and people working on this project.
Aims
The ultimate aim
The ultimate aim of this project is simple: to improve the quality of the tomatoes and potatoes we eat.
What aspects of tomatoes and potatoes are EU-SOL interested in improving?
EU-SOL scientists are trying to improve:
- Traits that are important to the experience of eating tomatoes and potatoes. For example: Taste, Aroma, Texture.
- Traits that contribute to the nutritional value of tomatoes and potatoes.
- Traits that are important to people growing tomatoes and potatoes. Including yield, resistance to drought and salt tolerance
- Traits that are important to the food industry. Including traits that aid tomato and potato storage.
Detailed aims
To achieve the above there are a number of secondary aims EU-SOL has to fulfil:
- To find out more about the internal processes within potato and tomato plants that affect traits we are interested in improving
- To identify some of the genes that affect these processes
- To take advantage of the largely unexplored biodiversity in the tomato and potato families by searching wild relatives of tomato and potato crop plants for versions (alleles) of these genes that could lead to improvements in the quality of tomatoes and potatoes.
- To test these genes in crop plants to see if they confer the desired quality.
The above research will both enable new and improved varieties to be developed and build on our knowledge to the future benefit of plant breeders and the industry and public they serve. (This mainly refers to the work done in the research modules 1, 2 and 3).
Additional aims:
- To pass on the knowledge that comes out of this project to industry, the scientific community and the public (This is mainly covered by module 7).
- To use state of the art technology and increase our expertise and skills in doing so (This is mostly covered by module 5).
- To participate in the international tomato genome sequencing effort. (This is mostly covered by module 4).
