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Competences and services

The A2M Experimental Facility specializes in setting up horticultural and arboricultural experiments with more or less strong environmental control.

Thanks to these competences possible to apply abiotic constraints (irrigation deficit, temperature rise) or biotic constraints (spontaneous or voluntary attack/inoculation of pathogens) and to help identifying key processes to be optimized for creating varieties adapted to the various constraints, and integrating them into high-performance systems that respect the environment.

Thus, the control of a number of factors (genetic diversity, production systems, stress levels) aims at phenotyping the genetic diversity in a given environment, to analyze different levels of interactions (e.g., Genotype x Environment, Genotype x Environment x Practices, Cultivated crop x Companion plants) and to monitor the deployment of a series of levers in the systems.

The unit also contributes to maintaining the genetic resources of CRBs (Biological Resource Centers) in GAFL target species and related wild species.
 
The range of experimental designs deployed thereby makes it possible to apply a range of very controlled conditions (e.g., growth chambers, greenhouses with different biosecurity levels), moderately controlled conditions (e.g., insect-proof tunnels) as well as field experiments with or without biotic/abiotic stress application.

The types of trials set up

• “System” trials testing combinations agronomic levers
• Trials with high genetic diversity involving, for example, core-collections or bi- to multi-parental progenies
• Biotic stresses by inoculation and/or low-input phytosanitary management. For example, the unit is involved in plum pox virus inoculation and the assessment of associated symptoms on Prunus.
• Abiotic stresses under controlled conditions (water deficit, nitrogen and saline stress)

 The species studied

One of the specificities of A2M is the number and diversity of species cultivated:
•    Model species such as Arabidopsis thaliana , tomato and peach
•    Solanaceae (tomato, pepper , eggplant), Cucurbitaceae (melon, cucumber), Rosaceae of the Prunus genus (apricot, almond, peach, plum and their rootstocks) and Malus crop species, and wild relatives of most of them.

The measurements carried out

• Monitoring plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses
• Growth measurements (vegetative, fruit-related…)
• Ecophysiological measurements (gas exchanges, water potentials…)
• Phenological (flowering, harvest) and disease symptoms observations
• Biodiversity and crop pest counts
• Environmental surveys: meteorology, microclimates
• Development and application of digital phenotyping (e.g., drone piloting)

Activities necessary for carrying out the experiments

• Management and maintenance of all devices (phytotrons, greenhouses, tunnels, orchards)
• Planting and plot maintenance
• Management of sanitary and climatic conditions in controlled facilities, including some with containment constraints (quarantine viruses and genetically modified materials)
• Management of sanitary status in open fields, in line with requirements to respect the environment (e.g., alternatives to glyphosate)
• Multiplication of plant material (e.g., sowing, grafting)