The main objective of GoodBerry is to provide the necessary knowledge and procedures to facilitate the development of highly productive and top quality berry fruits, even under multiple suboptimal growth conditions, at a competitive cost. The project is based on an integrative multi-actor approach, from cultivation techniques to molecular studies, aiming the development and validation of a range of tools to improve competitiveness of European berry production, and eventually the attraction and confidence of consumers. The selection of the model species can be considered as strategic since strawberry is the most important berry crop in Europe and the production of raspberry and blackcurrant are increasing strongly in recent years. The project will apply the most recent technical advances in: a) The identification of berry germplasm exhibiting advantageous balance of production vs nutritional quality throughout the EU, b) The search of innovative production systems to maintain high yield in a range of European-wide environments, c) The development of standardized and reliable analytical tools to evaluate berry production and fruit quality. As result, it is expected: a) the implementation of modern breeding strategies to accelerate the release of new berry cultivars; b) The adoption by EU-growers of high quality production systems to improve fruit quality. The proposal establishes as obligatory to disseminate and communicate the results to the scientific community, industry, the broad public and interested stakeholders user. The final impact will be to consolidate the emerging needs of high-quality berries, and to boost consumer and market confidence supported by an improved competitiveness of producers. It is a multidisciplinary, collaborative project based on complementary expertise and skills of internationally recognized berry research institutions, and highly involved key berry SMEs that will combine their effort to secure the robustness of the results.

The project deals with the urgent need to provide climate-resilient cultivars addressed to organic vegetable production systems. These new cultivars will benefit organic growers, and the organic seed industry, providing much needed security both under current and future scenarios of climate change. In this project, we will exploit the genetic variation of broccoli, kohlrabi, bean and tomato for enhanced productivity, by exploiting up-to-date knowledge of genome structure and function. This work will be enhanced by the active involvement of farmers, advisory services, research institutes, breeding companies and food processors from diverse geographical/climatic contexts in Europe and Non-EU countries. The selection of pre-breeding/ breeding lines for the three species will be undertaken in organic vegetable farming systems, utilizing an annual crop rotation scheme. New cultivars will be selected for efficiency when grown under water, temperature, and nitrogen stress, for resistance to some pests and diseases, for desirable product quality traits such as taste, visual appearance, post-harvest performance. The Stakeholder Board will contribute to the expected outcomes of the project. Crop genetic diversity will be broad as we will be utilizing several landraces (LRs) and crops wild relatives (CWRs) provided by partners for the foreseen pre-breeding and breeding activities. We will adopt an innovative approach, where plant traits related to the roots-zone, and to root-growth, and architecture that enable a better interaction with organic soil and its microbiome, are sought to benefit the end-users. This approach will ensure that the available genetic resources and bred-germplasm, combined with the best on-farm management practices will enhance resource use efficiency and productivity. The germplasm from this project will act to pump-prime the production of new seed for the organic growing sector and will also serve as a model for the enhancement of other crops.