About

Nitrogen (N) is a major limiting factor for plant growth and crop yield in both natural and agricultural environments. For this reason, in the past decades, N fertilisation has increased more than 20-fold in excess compared to crop requirement, causing massive environment and human health damages with elevated economic and ecological costs. Therefore, to minimise N input, an efficient fertiliser management together with the identification of high N-use efficient genotypes could be one of the main challenge to sustain high crop yields.

SOLNUE aim is to provide knowledge and strategies for an ecological and sustainable vegetable cropping system by the reduction of nitrogen (N) fertiliser, using tomato and eggplant as target species. The results may be extended to other fruit vegetables. In particular, the main goal will be the identification of tomato and eggplant efficient genotypes in N-use in agreement with the EU policy about the agricultural sustainable practices.

Results

• SOLNUE aims to improve the resilience of two important vegetable crops, tomato and eggplant for sustainable cropping systems in the Mediterranean Basin.
• Will improve the knowledge on Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE)-related key traits by studying NUE-contrasting tomato and eggplant genotypes.
• Pursues the necessity to move from high- to low-input approach by N-fertilizers reduction, employing newly selected genotypes with high NUE.
• Guidelines for the exploitation of NUE improved genotypes will be proposed to the stockholders to significantly reduce the environmental impact of vegetable cropping systems through an appropriate N management.