EUROPEPLAND

The Mediterranean basin is a centre of secondary diversification for pepper, harbouring highly diverse landraces that are vital for resilient agriculture. These genetic resources represent a reservoir of traits adaptable to diverse environments and hold significant potential for breeding new varieties. However, their full exploitation is often hindered by incomplete passport data and insufficient characterization. EuroPepLand addresses these gaps by improving both phenotypic descriptors and genomic characterization of Capsicum landraces held in European genebanks and research institutions, making this information available through AEGIS, the EVA Pepper Network and EURISCO.

The project brings together 19 partners from 13 countries – Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Spain – ensuring broad continental coverage. Partners include major genebanks such as INRAE, INIAV, CGN, IPK, CNR and COMAV-UPV, alongside institutions with specialist expertise in genomics, bioinformatics and stress physiology.

The core activity is the development of a novel core collection of approximately 300 accessions representing the full diversity of European pepper landraces, with a focus on domesticated Capsicum annuum. Work is organized across three tasks:

• Task 1 establishes the core collection based on geographic origin and key fruit traits, with seed regeneration and safety duplication across partner genebanks.
• Task 2 applies common phenotyping protocols aligned with the EVA Pepper Network, alongside next-generation sequencing using the existing 19K pepper array – enabling data integration across both collections. Selected genotypes will also be assessed for bioactive compounds and salt stress tolerance.
• Task 3 integrates genomic, passport and phenotypic data to investigate genetic diversity, population structure and candidate genes. A small subset of accessions will undergo proof-of-concept abiotic stress and metabolic trials.

All data will be linked to DOIs and deposited in EURISCO, Zenodo and the EVA tools, maximizing the long-term accessibility and valorization of European pepper genetic resources for sustainable breeding.

October 2025
In the past few months, the nucleic acid isolation from plant samples has been completed. High-quality DNA was obtained from 400 accessions representing the EuroPepLand collection. Thirty out of the 430 accessions provided by partners did not germinate. This does not constitute a limitation, as it does not impact the diversity of the collection. All partners are adequately represented, displaying an appropriate balance among the various European geographical regions. The first batch of samples was sent in July, and data were delivered in September. So far, 372 accessions have already been genotyped, yielding over 9,900 SNPs. The last plate is currently ongoing, and results are expected before the end of the year. Data will be analyzed once the entire SNP dataset is finalized. Most partners provided the phenotyping data for the accessions they contributed. Information available for the collection beyond passport data includes shape, colour, pungency and fruit size data.

In November, a phenotyping experiment for salt stress will be carried out on selected accessions in order to confirm previous data on materials from the EVA pepper project and some accessions part of the EuroPepLand collection. The experiment will be performed in the phenotyping platform of CREA-OF https://shorturl.at/cKeeD. Leaf samples from the control and salt stress trial will be analyzed for metabolite content in 2026.

May 2025
During a virtual meeting on 14 May 2025, project partners were updated on progress in the processing of pepper samples for genotyping. The current collection encompasses more than 400 landraces from 12 collections with a balanced geographical representation from across Europe, a secondary center of pepper diversification. The project is making good progress with all partners contributing material and expertise. As DNA extraction and genotyping will proceed in the coming months, phenotypic data for priority traits will be collected from historic sources or field trials conducted in 2025 to allow genomic association analyses and for sharing in EURISCO. A next meeting will be held when the genotyping data have been analyzed by late 2025.
The presentation by P. Tripodi is available here (1,7 MB).