Crop-livestock and feed systems have huge importance for Mediterranean regions to satisfy the increasing population demand for animal products (milk, eggs, meat), to increase the economic stability of smallholders and to produce typical animal products with high added-value, while contributing in all cases to sustainable farming, environment protection and efficient nutrient cycling. These systems are threatened, however, by the marked insufficiency of high-protein feedstuff, the overexploitation of forage resources, the increasing costs and/or the decreasing availability of irrigation water and mineral fertilizers, and the increasing drought and heat stress arising from climate change. The development of resilient, water- and energy-efficient forage and feed legume crops could definitely alleviate all of these constraints. This is the objective of the present project, which joins nine research institutions from Italy, France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and USA in a closely integrated manner to develop: 1) lucerne varieties with greater tolerance to severe drought, salinity, heat and grazing than the available varieties; 2) pea varieties with greater drought tolerance than the available varieties, targeted to grain and forage production; 3) cost-efficient marker-assisted selection procedures for pea drought tolerance and for lucerne tolerance to severe drought, salinity and grazing, forage quality and compatibility with grass companions (whose implementation by each partner will be favored by a molecular breeding training workshop); 4) ecological breeding strategies for lucerne and pea; 5) optimal lucerne-based and pea-based forage crops in relation to legume plant types, associated grass or cereal species, extent of drought stress, acceptability by farmers in a participatory assessment, and target forage quality and utilization. Optimal diets including innovative forage crops or pea grain will be defined for different animal species and production levels in a final workshop and promoted, along with optimal cultivation methods, in a freely-available electronic handbook. This and other dissemination actions will spread the project results among farmers and other stakeholders.

A collaborative interdisciplinary initiative is proposed to promote grain legume cultivation in Mediterranean countries. It includes biotechnologists, agronomists, plant breeders, crop physiologists, organic chemists and phytopathologists from Algeria, Egypt, France, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia with the aim to evaluate currently and previously grown grain legume varieties for characteristics of importance to sustainable agriculture and to apply novel tools to integrate genetic resistance with other control practises in a concerted manner. Priority is given to the combination of increased yield and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, epidemiology and integrated management thus allowing for the production of leguminous crops of high value in crop rotations of low input and stable yields. The general objective of the work is to combine the application of marker-assisted selection and conventional breeding methods to develop enhanced grain legume genotypes with characteristics of importance to sustainable agriculture across Mediterranean. This will be achieved by: (i) Evaluation of current and historic chickpea, common bean, faba bean, lentil and pea germplasm for characteristics of importance to sustainable agriculture in order to define the desired phenotypes suitable for each Mediterranean area (ii) Development of new and reliable screening methods for the most relevant biotic and abiotic stresses in order to identify new sources of resistance and characterise the resistance mechanisms. The resulting germplasm will be of great interest in future breeding programmes (iii) Identification of new QTLs for yield and resistance/tolerance to stresses in pea. Studies on field stability of QTLs across diverse locations and genetic backgrounds will allow the development of specific markers for pyramiding and rapid screening. (iv) Identification of primary inoculum sources explaining the recurrence of the disease, and evaluation of new combinations of control methods (architectural features, cultural practices, resistance, etc) for the management of the major legume diseases. (v) Development of integrated management of the fungal diseases and broomrapes using fungal and plant metabolites.