PotatoMETAbiome: Harnessing the potato-microbiome interactions for development of sustainable breeding and production strategies

PotatoMETAbiome aims at identifying potato genotypes that interact effectively with the soil microbiome, thus generating cultivars that have reduced dependencies on external inputs (synthetic fertilizers and pesticides) while maintaining high yield, under non-stress as well as biotic (pathogen pressure) and abiotic stress conditions. Potato varieties will be selected for microbiome-interactive traits (MIT) and analysed for both plant and microbiome genomics, thus identifying the mechanisms controlling the positive effect of the microbiome and genetic markers associated with MIT for use in future potato breeding strategies.