SPECIFICS is a project under the Priority Research Programme “Cultiver et Protéger Autrement” aimed at designing pesticide-free cropping systems rich in pulses.
Project site: https://specifics.hub.inrae.fr/
SPECIFICS aims to acquire new knowledge for assisting in the design and the development of pesticide-free and legume-rich cropping systems. Pesticide-free farming systems require a profound change from present crop protection using curative methods against pests and pathogens, to biodiversity-based strategies aimed at reducing pest and pathogen pressure through more systemic and agro-ecological approaches. The design of pesticide-free systems requires coordinated action at different scales with different options such as introducing resistant and/or resilient crops and cultivars, diversifying arable crops both in time and space, and designing agroecological infrastructures in farms for intensifying biological regulations and thus reducing pest and disease populations by promoting natural enemies and increasing competition against weeds. Grain legumes, key species at the interface of the agro-ecological and food transitions, are good candidates for diversifying cropping systems. Grain legumes produce seeds rich in protein and are able to acquire nitrogen through symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria present in soils. Their cultivation thus makes it possible to reduce the use of nitrogen inputs in agrosystems, resulting in fewer greenhouse gas emissions and potentially less water pollution. On the other hand, they themselves are very susceptible to different pests and diseases. How can the resistance of legume species (pea, faba bean, lentil) to various pests (sitones, bruchids, aphids) and diseases (Aphanomyces, ascochyta, powdery mildew), and their competitiveness against weeds, be increased? How can they be inserted into diversified cropping systems to increase biological regulation of bio-aggressors without the use of pesticides? How should the development of these innovative systems be promoted at other scales (farms, value-chain)?
The aim of SPECIFICS is to identify and evaluate various levers to allow for a transition towards pesticide-free and legume-rich farming systems by searching for new sources of resistance, incorporating more biological diversity over time (rotation) and in space (intra- and interspecific intercrops, agro-ecological infrastructures, etc.), by evaluating options for the promotion of these systems. Our project combines a wide range of skills from agronomists, geneticists, pathologists, entomologists, ecologists, economists and sociologists to design varieties, cropping systems, methods of evaluation and transfer to the stakeholders, to ensure economic and agronomic sustainability of pesticide-free farming systems.
Our experiments will be based on existing experimental pesticide-free platforms, where a wide range of legume-rich cropping systems are implemented, as well as on extensive surveys and economics data processing. The methodologies used will range from direct and reverse genomics to search for new sources of varietal resistance to several biotic stresses and the identification of traits of interest for the control of pests, to the analysis of co-evolution of different pests and their natural enemies at different spatial and temporal scales and the testing of innovative spatio-temporal combinations, both in the field and by modeling, and up to the socio-economic study of conditions and levers allowing the transition to pesticide-free farming at the farm and value-chain level.
The results expected are multi-resistant breeding lines and keys to understanding resistance mechanisms to better employ them for the purposes of sustainability; knowledge of biological regulations (plant-plant interactions, plant-pest-natural enemies, plant- soil microbial communitysoil pathogen) at different temporal and spatial scales; tools for enabling the design of diversified, pesticide-free systems for farmers and advisors; delocking strategies for the development of these systems, and new courses and training to ensure the transmission of agro-ecological practices to the new generation of actors.
Partners: INRAE (UMR Agroécologie, UMR IGEPP, UMR AGIR, UMR IRHS, URGI, UE Epoisses, UE Bourges, UE La Motte, AFP, LISIS, UMR IESEG), ESA (LEVA)
