Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique

The French National Institute for Agronomical Research (INRA) is the leading European agricultural research institute and one of the foremost institutes in the world for agriculture, food, and the environment. The research activities of the project will be carried out at the INRA Research Unit of Genetics and Breeding of Fruit and Vegetables settled in Avignon (GAFL). INRA-GAFL carries out research on Solanaceae, melon, lettuce and Prunus and is the French Center for conservation and characterization of tomato, pepper, eggplant and melon genetic resources.

Dr Mathilde Causse will lead the INRA team. She has over 25 years’ experience as a plant geneticist and is leading the research group “Diversity Quality and Environment of Tomato” working on genetics of tomato fruit quality, diversity and adaptation to environment. Her main scientific interests are plant breeding, natural genetic diversity of complex traits and the use of molecular markers to improve breeding efficiency. She has coordinated several scientific projects on tomato genetics.

Within TRADITOM, the INRA team will contribute its long experience in the study of genetic diversity for fruit traits. INRA will provide its expertise in plant breeding and plant genetics. In particular it will focus on the study of the environmental impact on fruit quality, on breeding new varieties for low input agriculture as well as on the combination of disease resistances and fruit quality.