A deeper understanding of the interactions between soils and plants, especially at the root zone, where they take up water and nutrients may support sustainable intensification of agricultural production. Research is indicating that a greater understanding of roots and soil functions may lead to increases in crop yields, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from soils, enhanced productivity in grasslands and reductions in fertilizer requirements to land. However, data gaps remain in our understanding of how plant roots interact with their environment from a physiological and phenotypic perspective. Plant Phenotyping has been described as the bottleneck to food security, yet the real bottleneck to plant phenotyping is thought to be image analysis and processing. The challenge of ensuring food security provides the impetus for ROOTED (Root Phenotyping Integrated Educational Doctoral Network). ROOTED will apply deep learning and artificial intelligence to speed up data generation in root phenotyping. Agriculture is increasingly using digital technologies, but currently 44% of the European workforce do not have these basic skills. This is a severe skills gap that Europe needs to close urgently to avoid economic downturn. ROOTED will consolidate the complimentary expertise of an international, interdisciplinary, multisectoral team to train a new generation of creative, resilient, adaptive multi-skilled scientists capable of innovating the fields of plant and soil sciences to actively contribute to the goal of doubling food production in a sustainable manner by 2050. Soil health and food is one of the 5 mission areas for Horizon Europe and the findings from ROOTED would be directly applicable to the EU’s Green deal and a Soil Deal for Europe. ROOTED graduates will have a level of scientific, communication and digital skills mastery that enables them to move straight into employment in agri-food businesses, seed and breeding companies, advisory and scientific roles.

InnoVar will develop next generation plant variety testing by building tools and models that augment current practices capitalising on advances in genomics, phenomics, imaging technologies and machine learning. The InnoVar database, populated with historical and de novo genotypic, phenotypic and environmental data will facilitate model development and evaluation for revision of DUS and VCU processes. Innovative ways to measure DUS characters will be evaluated. VCU evaluation procedures will be revised and shaped to comprehensively address variability in growing conditions, stresses and management approaches. Processes for identifying optimally-adapted varieties and delivering information to farmers, end-users and stakeholders will be put in place. This will include the creation of the High Performance Low Risk (HPLR) varieties as a concept and a brand potentially leading to harmonisation of VCU testing across the EU. InnoVar will focus on wheat initially, and apply the InnoVar approach to other major crops. Developments and advances achieved will also influence breeding processes. This project will take variety information to the next level in four ways: (i) providing information on new DUS and VCU characters and identifying synergies; (ii) developing varieties with proven suitability for the various growing scenarios; (iii) making this information available to farmers throughout the EU, and (iv) disseminating the information in readily accessible and easily updated digital formats. Cutting-edge science will be integrated with tried and tested DUS and VCU processes to deliver an invigorated EU variety evaluation system capable of delivering increasingly productive and more sustainable cropping to meet the challenges arising from population growth, food security and climate change.