The project “Development and Preparation of Eggplant Pre-bred Materials for Adaptation to Climate Change” is being implemented by a team composed of the World Vegetable Center, the Universitat Politècnica de València, Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. The project will also count on the collaboration of five breeding companies (East-West Seed, Meridiem Seeds, Callivoire, Hayleys Agriculture Holdings Limited, and Novagenetic) from different parts of the world and an important focus on world regions where climate change will probably have a major impact. The project will take place from 2017 to 2019.
The present proposal is aimed at developing and preparing pre-breeding materials of eggplant (Solanum melongena) containing introgressions of wild relatives for incorporating them in breeding pipelines in order to develop new eggplant materials with improved adaptation to climate change. The project will use the wealth of pre-bred materials obtained in the former project “Utilization of crop wild relatives in eggplant breeding for adaptation to climate change” (Dec. 2013-Dec. 2016), where interspecific hybrids with wild species from the primary, secondary and tertiary genepools, advanced backcross generations of these hybrids towards the cultivated eggplant, and introgression lines with the wild relative S. incanum were obtained.
The project will focus on fifteen of the wild relatives of eggplant: Solanum anguivi, S. campylacanthum, S. dasyphyllum, S. elaeagnifolium, S. incanum, S. insanum, S. lichtensteinii, S. lidii, S. linnaeanum, S. pyracanthos, S. tomentosum, S. torvum, S. sisymbriifolium, S. vespertilio, S. violaceum.
