People - Nutrition-sensitive breeding of Cucurbita plants

Work packages 5

WP 5. Management and dissemination

Overall management and administration of the project

Sub-activity 5.1. Administrative and financial management, reporting
Sub-activity 5.2. Dissemination and communication organizing and monitoring
Sub-activity 5.3. External evaluation

Work packages 4

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

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of carotenoids from Cucurbita fruits and testing the most adequate “green” extraction technique for the highest carotenoids yield

Sub-activity 4.1. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of carotenoids from the fruits of tested Cucurbita accessions
Sub-activity 4.2. Optimizing the most suitable “green” technique (supercritical, NADES and modified state extraction with polar extract) for the extraction of Cucurbita carotenoids

Work packages 3

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

Identifying the most relevant metabolic stress marker(s) that can be used at early stages of plant development to pre-breed for tolerance to abiotic stress

3.1. Determining the content of the proposed metabolic stress markers in the leaves of young Cucurbita moschata, maxima, and pepo plants
3.2. Determining the above parameters in stressed and non-stressed plants grown in the open field, at generative phase of development and interpreting the results

Work packages 2

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

Assessing Cucurbita moschata, maxima, and pepo response to drought and suboptimal fertilization, in terms of nutritional quality and agronomic yield, by using phenotypically divergent material

2.1. Processing data from previously performed multi-year field trials aimed to screen Cucurbita spp. breeding collection (>120 accessions in total) in terms of fruit flesh nutritional quality and agronomic yield
2.2. Field trial: divergent Cucurbita spp. accessions grown under contrasting mineral nutrition and water availability regimes
2.3. Biochemical analyses of general parameters of nutritional quality
2.4. Results interpretation

Work packages 1

WP 1. Genetic components of Cucurbita nutritional quality

Investigating inheritance patterns and possibilities to exploit F1 heterosis to improve nutritional quality, Cucurbita moschata model

1.1. Optimizing number/identity of parental genotypes and F1 populations, by assessing variability from previous one-season pilot field trial
1.2. Field trial: parameters of agronomic importance, sampling for nutritional quality analyses
1.3. Biochemical analyses of general parameters of nutritional quality
1.4. Results interpretation

Nutrition-Sensitive Breeding of Cucurbita Plants

NutSens_PumpBreed

TEAM MEMBERS

Dr Milka Brdar – Jokanović

Dr Biljana Kiprovski

Dr Marko Kebert

MSc Milana Matić

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