Europe faces the challenge of delivering safe, high-quality, and health-promoting food and feed as well as bio-products in an economical, environmentally sensitive, and sustainable manner across environments that face climatic change and increasing abiotic and biotic stresses. Triticeae cereals (wheat, barley, rye) are essential in human and domestic animal nutrition and are arguably the most important crops for European agriculture. Existing germplasm resources and current breeding methods alone are insufficient for understanding the mechanisms underlying important traits and for catalysing a quantum leap in yield, sustainability and quality improvement. Major advances in crops will require a broad suite of direct genomics approaches, built on relevant data from model plants (rice, Brachypodium). Such a strategy is massively complex and can only be carried out efficiently at the international level. We propose a COST Action to coordinate, focus and strengthen national and pan-European Triticeae genomics and to address infrastructure disparities. The four Working Groups will arrange workshops, Short Term Scientific Missions, a website, and joint databases and publications.
Keywords: Harvest Quality and Yield Stability, Genetic Resources and Diversity, Structural, Comparative, and Functional Genomics, Biotic and Abiotic Stress Resistance, Molecular Breeding Tools
