Root traits and microbiome markers for resilience and climate change adaptation and mitigation in a fruit tree production system

ROOTBIOME aims to identify and utilise root traits and microbiome markers that are critical drivers for Prunus performance under climate change-relevant stress conditions.
Specific objectives:
1. To determine root microbiome structure and key taxa that serve as predictors for crop resilience and soil C stocks under field growing conditions (Task 1)
2. To unravel root system architecture traits related to drought resistance and soil C stocks (Task 2)
3. To identify microbial genetic determinants related to single- (drought or root rot) or multi-stress adaptation (drought x root rot combination) under near-nursery growing conditions and integrate new sources of explanatory covariates from all tasks to develop novel predictors for enhanced crop performance (Task 3)