On the final stretch - TRADITOM progress meeting in Taormina, Sicily

After amending the project duration by another 6 months, the TRADITOM consortium gathered again on yet another European island for their 3rd and final project meeting in Taormina, Sicily on 24-25 April 2018. The meeting was hosted by the local TRADITOM cooperating partner, Università Mediterranea - Reggio Calabria.

The 39 participants were greeted by Sicily – a volcanic island with a long tradition in tomato growing  – with wonderful sunny spring weather, which made the breaks during the two meeting days all the more enjoyable. But certainly, learning about the Sicilian way of agriculture was not the only reason for the consortium to come together: the main focus of the meeting was on the progress of the TRADITOM project during the last year as well on the final steps before the project end and the exploitation and sustainability of its results.

Following the official welcome by TRADITOM coordinator Antonio Granell (CSIC) who briefly summarized the main findings within the project so far, a new project called BRESOV - Breeding for Resilient, Efficient and Sustainable Organic Vegetable production which offers synergies to TRADITOM was presented by Prof. Ferdinando Branca (University of Catania). The rest of the first day was dedicated to the work package presentations where the sixteen partner institutions involved in TRADITOM presented their scientific progress and results.

“I would highlight the huge quantity of work done, the commitment of all partners and their interest in performing well in all trials and experiments.” (María José Díez, UPV)

On the second meeting day, the TRADITOM partners had the opportunity for detailed discussions on the related scientific publications and on how to further exploit the results achieved during the last three project years. Additional space was given for group workshops and discussions as emerging during the meeting, e.g. on future cooperation in thematic networks or operational groups via EIP-AGRI.

“Apart of the results presented for each work package, the working group discussions conducted in the frame of the publication session were highly important to define the analysis of the results.” (Joan Casals Missio, UPC-FMA)

Coordinator Toni Granell then summarized the meeting and project conclusions and thanked all partners for their commitment before the meeting ended with a technical visit to the Etna National Park.

“Genetic variability in tomato has been for many years part of my research agenda but this has added so many additional possibilities. We have now a new line derived from TRADITOM that I call ‘innovation in tradition’. Also we are now working much more closely with the farmers.” (Toni Granell, CSIC)

All TRADITOM partners look back on a successful project with a remarkable number of publications in renowned journals as well as potential commercial outputs and thank all participants as well as the excellent host for a productive final meeting.

“We have been delighted to have the opportunity to host the TRADITOM consortium. In Sicily, the agriculture and in particular the horticulture traditionally depends and focusses on tomato growing (Pomodoro di Pachino IGP in South East Sicily and the traditional tomatoes "da serbo" mainly in Western Sicily), and will highly benefit from our collaborative research outputs one day. It is important to strengthen the links between laboratories and farms as well as producers and scientists.” (Maria Rosa Abenavoli and Francesco Sunseri, UNIRC)