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Objectives: Exploration of the large diversity of wild forms and various morphotypes Brassica vegetables, present all along the Mediterranean climatic gradient

Task 1.1: Collect of populations in the different countries

In each country (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Italy, France), wild populations of both species will be located according to the knowledge available (in collaboration with National Botanical Conservatories and Coastal conservatory in France http://siflore.fcbn.fr/ and according to previous prospecting areas). Common descriptors for the description of the samples will be designed within the consortium, in order to establish exhaustive Passport data. Local flora (number of plants per species) will be described either by botanists or by matK barcoding after leaf sampling). Seeds will be collected on a maximum of 30 different plants and a minimum of 15 plants per population; soil samples (in each population: three samples for structure analysis and 3 samples for microbiota analysis) will be collected. Standardized methods will be used for soil analysis. ~80 to 85 populations will be collected per species.
Local landraces are already available either in Genetic Resource Centers/Gene banks with their passport data or in small farms. In this last cases, information on farming practices will be collected as well as associated cooking recipes and seeds. ~60 to 80 local populations will be used per species.

Number of populations that will be collected by the different partners:

*Wild relatives

In case of suspicion on species identity, control through cytogenetic will be performed by partner 9 and/or chloroplast sequencing (P1). Among these populations, 100 populations will be chosen after discussion between the partners for further analysis (see WP2)
Description of each population will be available to all partners on the Seek software at the BBIP software (see WP5)
Farmers and coastal conservators will be informed of the results all along the project through meetings and reports.

Task 1.2: Multiplication of the different populations

In order to remove the maternal effects on plant generations and perform GWA studies on a range of phenotypes, seeds from 3 plants per each population will be used to propagate the populations under cages in controlled and homogenous conditions at the IGEPP laboratory. The obtained seeds of each population will be bulked and sent to each partner for WP3.
Seeds will be exchanged based on SMTA/MTA with all partners whereas each partner will be encouraged to multiply the seeds for diffusion, and each population will remain the property of specific country of origin.