Nutrition-sensitive breeding of Cucurbita plants

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Nutrition-Sensitive Breeding of Cucurbita Plants

Welcome to the Nutrition-sensitive breeding of Cucurbita plants project (acronym: NutSens_PumpBreed), aimed at enhancing the nutritional quality of pumpkins

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Nutrition-Sensitive Breeding of Cucurbita Plants

The project is a collaboration between researchers from the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops (IFVCNS), serving as the leading institution, and researchers from the Institute of Lowland Forestry and Environment (ILFE) and the Institute of Food Technology (FINS), both affiliated with the University of Novi Sad. The project is funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia through the PRISMA program.

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Nutrition-Sensitive Breeding of Cucurbita Plants

The objective of the project is to develop a vegetable breeding program primarily focused on enhancing nutritional quality. This program aligns with the principles of climate-smart agronomy, taking into account prevalent environmental constraints such as drought, as well as the ongoing economic crisis affecting the region which may hinder producers' ability to supply crops with optimal levels of mineral nutrients.

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Nutrition-Sensitive Breeding of Cucurbita Plants

By the implementation of the project, we expect to achieve the following: define the genotype and environmental stress specificity of nutritional quality, describe the relationships between agronomic yield and nutritional quality, investigate inheritance patterns for nutritional quality and possibilities for improvement, utilize metabolic stress markers to pre-breed for abiotic stress tolerance, and identify the most efficient green method for extracting carotenoids from pumpkin fruit pulp.

NutSens_PumpBreed

WP 5. Management and dissemination

W P 4. Carotenoids in Cucurbita plants – “green” extraction, composition and concentration

WP 3. Pre-breeding Cucurbita for tolerance to abiotic stress, by using metabolic stress markers

WP 2. Cucurbita nutritional quality and agronomic yield: adaptability to drought and suboptimal fertilization

WP 1. Genetic components of Cucurbita nutritional quality