Agro-environmental innovation against plant enemies

Qhen you consume a plate of tender and inviting lettuce, in addition to the efforts of the farmer, there is also the work of a special scientist behind it: the plant pathologist, which deals with crop protection. The salad, in fact, is the favorite victim of a fungus, the Fusarium oxysporum lettuce, which is able to survive in the soil and penetrate the roots. We are at Agroinnova Competence Center for innovation in the agro-environmental field of the University of Turin. Here in eight thousand square meters of laboratories and greenhouses this fungus is also fought, using as little chemistry as possible and exploiting the genetic heritage to create new varieties resistant to pathogens. It is a fight without quarter: usually, the mushroom is defeated, then within three years it reappears and the search begins again. of a new resistant cultivar, which also meets the consumer’s taste.

An experimental greenhouse of Agroinnova, the Center for innovation in the agro-environmental field of the University of Turin

In this battle, the generals are the director Maria Lodovica Gullino, 69, full professor of Plant Pathologyflanked by the president Angelo Garibaldi, professor emeritus, and by a staff of specialists and researchers. By visiting the greenhouses of the Center, which this year celebrates twenty years of activity, you can get a taste of the work in progress. Soilless crops are studied with more yield and less water consumptionresistance inductors are tested, that is substances that strengthen the plant against its enemies, and work is carried out on futuristic panels instead of glass in greenhouses, capable of producing electricity.

Defeat the enemies of the future

But the real leap into the future is made with phytotronswhere we simulate the temperature and CO2 that could exist in 10 or 30 years, in order to understand how plant enemies will react. On a planet that must feed beyond eight billion people, in which more than 15 percent of food is lost due to plant diseases, today it is more strategic than ever not to be caught unprepared and to learn how to cultivate with less land, less water and less fertilizers and pesticides.

Maria Lodovica Gullino, 69, professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Turin, is director of the Agroinnova Innovation Center.

Professor Gullino, climate change is already a reality. What consequences will it have on our diet?
Agriculture is undergoing a great phase of change. Research has intensified towards adaptation and mitigation interventions. Plants have a tremendous ability to adapt, because they have always had to. If it’s hot, they can’t turn on the air conditioning, or move to cool. It is up to us to exploit this aspect and urge it. In Italy we are in a difficult situation, the climatic conditions will become more and more similar to those of Morocco and Tunisia. Our crops will move north: Sweden and Norway begin to be able to grow cereals from northern Italy, Holland may no longer need greenhouses for tomatoes. Scotland and Ireland dream of producing Barolo and luckily for us they don’t have the same soil conditions. And it is not just a matter of rising temperatures, but also of extreme phenomena, such as floods and tornadoes. To defend ourselves, with genetic improvement we can select plants that are more resistant to high temperatures and with less water requirements. We will certainly change some crops as well. We are already growing avocado in Sicily, maybe we will also do it in the north.

Is what we put on our plates today of quality?
The Efsa data – the European Food Safety Authority – tell us that the average Italian production is healthy, over half has no detectable residues and 35 percent has residues lower than those permitted by law. We are better than the French, the Spaniards, the Germans because we have adopted integrated production techniques for a long time, the farmers enjoy excellent assistance and we have many controls. And I am referring to conventional agriculture, not to organic or biodynamic agriculture, which it is right that there are but which only feed a niche of the population.

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The war in Ukraine affects our spending. We are dealing with the problem of wheat, corn and oils such as sunflower, which at first could not be found, now expensive.
We Italians who have developed the best varieties of wheat, over time, have produced less and less, and we import it. This situation will lead us to a revision: go back to producing more wheat and cut back on corn that consumes too much water. Many are pointing to old varieties of wheat, but remember that they are sometimes less productive. It will be necessary to better inform the consumer about the product: to know the seasonality, to know how it is grown.

Corn is often destined for animal husbandry. Do we consume too much meat?
I am not in favor of eliminating meat, but it will return to a more limited consumption. It already happens for health reasons, red meats are not so good. In farms, technologies that reduce emissions will have to be adopted, there will be higher costs and the farmer will have to be repaid. However, we have a variety of vegetables that allow us to eat less meat, and of quality.

A challenge for our agriculture?
Re-evaluate the hilly and mid-mountain areas, often abandoned. With climate change, marginal areas can become protagonists of profitable agriculture, with the help of technology. We must be able to bring in young people, immigrants who move because of the climate. But they must not be isolated: a stable community must be recreated there. There will be areas of the Alps and the Apennines that will have the climatic conditions we had before in the plains.

How does technology change the way we cultivate?
It’s all simpler. There are drones, remote controls, fertilization and soil analysis. The data collected and processed arrive on the farmer’s mobile phone, who is warned, for example, that there are ideal conditions for an attack of downy mildew (which affects potatoes, tomatoes, vines, ed.). Once it was the parish priest who rang the bell.

Have you also developed a special type of compost?
Yes, by making the most of agricultural, domestic and food waste… We have noticed that certain compost, in addition to the fertilizing action, also suppress the development of some pathogens. It is a phenomenon that is seen in soils: antagonistic fungi fight the harmful ones. When we moved to Grugliasco, through a development project at a local level for less favored areas, we obtained a loan that led us to the creation of AgriNewTech, producer of this compost, the result of years of research, which can be used in the fields but even on the balcony.

What is the Post-Fruit project for fruit preservation after harvest?
The moment after the harvest is critical, especially in the poorest countries, where even half of the product is lost. Using chemistry is only allowed on very few fruits (such as apples or kiwis, which have thick skin). However, the consumer does not want this type of treatment. So for some time we have been working to develop antagonistic microorganisms, mostly yeasts already present, but in low concentrations. They colonize the micro-lesions of the fruits, multiply quickly and do not allow the pathogens to arrive. Today we use them after harvest – and even before, in the field – on apples, pears, oranges. This project was born to help small producers, the big ones have super-technological cold rooms.

What do you do with strawberries?
Today they are tasty and never spoiled, because a great deal of genetic improvement has been done. The selected varieties have a white collar at the level of the petiole with very high values ​​of phenolic substances, which are natural antimicrobials.

What is the most exciting case you have worked on?
At the end of the 1980s, the Ministry for the Environment called me, which at the time wanted to eliminate methyl bromide, a fumigant used for soil disinfestation with serious consequences. Its degradation products altered atmospheric ozone, and then Italy was the second largest consumer in the world. I went to Rome fearfully, but for the first time I experienced firsthand how the results of years of research could be useful not only to the farmer but also to politics, to define reasonable rules. We participated in the Montreal Protocol and managed to have a gradual and reasonable reduction process in Italy for our farmers. Then these results were transferred to Morocco, Kenya, Tunisia and also to China, bringing our technologies there.

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