Abstract Context and objectives of the solution Bird damage to crops, particularly at emergence, has to date no solution and little research has been done on this subject, at least in the European context. The distress of producers has been growing for the past fifteen years and may lead to the abandonment of crops considered too risky (sunflower, pulses, maize). As a result, bird damage has an impact on crop diversity and indirectly on several aspects of the sustainability of cropping systems, including treatment practices. Field scale methods are insufficient, and the underlying ecological processes justify a hierarchical, multi-scale approach. The project aims to develop and test a concerted management approach on a territorial scale. The work will be carried out in close collaboration with stakeholders in 3 pilot territories: Beauce/Gâtinais (with 3 cooperatives and an association); Yonne (with the farmers involved in the ANR R2D2 project); Drôme (with the seed production sector). Approaches and methodology The project will be based on a diagnostic - planning - evaluation approach carried out in 3 territories in conjunction with local advisors and farmers. The strategy will consist in locally adapting and combining several technical elements resulting from studies and feedback from international experience (synchronisation of sowing, choice of suitable sowing dates and sowing of alternative resources). Substantial resources will be devoted to collecting, sharing, and processing spatialised information, which will make possible the monitoring of actions. End user The results will be a better knowledge of the processes at the origin of damage, a collective prevention approach documented and evaluated, and a toolbox for collecting and sharing territorial information. The users will be farmers, advisory structures and companies (cooperatives and seed production establishments). Indirectly, the project will contribute to calming the debate on bird destruction by reformulating it around agronomic integrated management practices. Relevance and sustainability of the solution The solution corresponds to a scientific consensus: there is no "silver bullet" to solve the problem of bird damage and the way forward lies in the combination of partial-effect solutions. Moreover, the territorial dimension is essential to compensate for the inadequacies of field-based control methods, particularly the risks of damage relocation and bird habituation. Finally, the participation of local farmers and advisers will ensure adaptation to local constraints. Overall, by securing the sowing of at-risk spring crops, the project will help to remove a barrier to the diversification of rotations and thus the sustainability of cropping systems. Presentation of the consortium Terres Inovia is the technical institute for the vegetable oil and protein and hemp sectors. It will coordinate the project. The INRAE Agronomy Unit will be involved in the co-design and evaluation of the proposed solutions. ANAMSO, which represents oilseed multiplication farmers, is a stakeholder in the Drôme region. Other stakeholders in the project will be involved as service providers: the association Hommes et Territoires and the cooperatives of Boisseaux, Puiseaux and AgroPithiviers.

The BRING IT ON project aims at bringing a new solution to breed oilseed rape (Brassica napus) for resistance to one of its major insect pests, the pollen beetle (Brassicogethes aeneus). Thus, it is targeted to the “Conception of more resilient systems to bio-aggressors” principal theme, with a varietal resistance to the pest that could be used in different crop management approaches. Our results show that such resistance exists in the close relative Sinapis alba and we have identified and confirmed contrasted accessions in both field and controlled conditions. With no other option for resistance breeding in oilseed rape, our solution is currently at TRL4. However, to reach TRL5, we need to ensure the ability to transfer efficiently the resistance to oilseed rape. Understanding the genetic and chemical determinants will give tools to achieve this transfer and accelerate resistant oilseed rape breeding by many years. Indeed, oilseed rape is heading for a dead end as a crop if solutions to escape the dependency to insecticides are not found. Finally, although specific to the resistance to pollen beetle, our project will generate resources that could be used for other oilseed rape insect pests and methods for other crop/insect interactions. BRING IT ON aims at making use of the diversity of resistance present in S. alba to identify the genetic determinants of this resistance and identify the chemicals compounds produced by S. alba resistant accessions to provide a solution for oilseed rape resistance breeding. Genetic and genomic resources in S. alba will be constructed from three different sources of resistance and QTL analyses will be performed to identify genomic regions involved in resistance. In parallel, previous results have shown that the resistance is expressed after contacts between the pests and the plant, thus, identifying chemical compounds produced by the plant that deter the pollen beetle will point towards biosynthetic pathways to improve by breeding. The combination of the two approaches will help prioritizing regions to target for validation and then use in breeding. Thus, the main user for this solution will be breeding companies that will be able to take up the solution quickly to generate resistant varieties. From the expected outcomes of BRING IT ON, marker assisted selection from the QTL regions or candidate genes will be used to generate new varieties in less than 10 years. In line with the Ecophyto plan, our solution will help decrease insecticide treatments. Thus, it will be beneficial to growers from both an economic and health perspectives. Reducing pesticide treatments in the spring at flowering time, a crucial period for pollinators, will also impact populations of beneficials insects, whether bees or biocontrol agents for other insect pests. According to a survey conducted in 2020 by Terres Inovia, resistant varieties, coupled with crop management strategies could help avoiding an average of 1.2 insecticide application per year. BRING IT ON has built a complementary consortium from 1) a private company (INNOLEA, Partner1) dedicated to the identification and understanding of beneficial alleles for oilseed crop breeding, in line with 3 major plant breeding companies in France (Lidea, Limagrain and RAGT) and bringing a strong genetic expertise, 2) a public institute (IGEPP, Partner2) specialized in developing innovative and sustainable solutions for plant production and protection and bringing a strong chemical ecology expertise and 3) an applied research institute (Terres Inovia, Partner3) for oil and protein crops and hemp with an objective to help growers in the diversification and sustainability of their production, with a strong expertise in field evaluation.

The production of new protein sources is necessary to sustain the worldwide consumption. Among them, oilseed proteins are good candidates due to their good amino acid (AA) composition and the important agricultural surfaces allocated to these crops in Europa and in France, especially rapeseed and sunflower. We will study the potential of theses crops, as well as flaxseed which outlets are increasing, to provide protein of good quality for human nutrition. For this purpose, several barriers have to be knocked down. On a technological point of view, protein extraction processes are not optimized and the incorporation of oilseed proteins in consumable food is few addressed. On a nutritional point of view, there are almost no data in humans related to the quality of these proteins. Our project will address these questions in three steps connected to each other. (1) Extraction processes will be optimized to increase the extraction yield, to remove compounds that can limit their interest for food products and to lower the volumes of effluents to achieve the most sustainable process as possible. (2) Assays of food enrichment will be implemented to obtain acceptable food products that can be produced at industrial scale. (3) Protein quality in these food products will be measured in vivo in humans using a novel dual tracer method for determining AA bioavailability. This method has been proposed by a FAO committee expert but was not implemented yet and will be developed in this project. The principle is to mix in an experimental meal a standard 13C protein (such as algae) together with the intrinsically labelled oilseed proteins. The blood 15N/13C or 2H/13C ratio will be compared to the ratio of the same AA in the meal and amodification of this ratio will reflect a modification of the AA bioavailability. The project will be conducted on a multistep mode, including upstream technological work to optimize protein extraction and purification, to formulate acceptable food products and to label the plants. As a result, experimental meals incorporating the intrinsically labelled proteins will be used for bioavailability in vivo studies. This project will bring the first validation of this non-invasive method for AA bioavailability, as well as the first data on protein and AA bioavailability of oilseeds, rapeseed, sunflower and flaxseed. The consortium is complementary and brings all the expertise necessary for the project: oilseed agronomy (Terres Inovia), oilseed ingredient production (Avril), plant protein biochemistry (LRGP) and in vivo protein quality assessment (PNCA). The project will provide basic and applied integrated additional knowledge related to agriculture, food sciences, food processing and human nutrition that will support local oilseed crop and oilseed protein development and use. This project will bring new data on the sustainability of oilseed proteins and their interest in human nutrition. It will favor the emergence of new sectors for exploitation of oilseed proteins in human nutrition. ProDige will assess the economic interest of greater crop diversification, and thus the opportunities of the diversification of species for agro-industrial strategies and consumer demands. This represents an important issue since rapeseed and sunflower represent a production of 1,2 million tons of protein in France. The project will bring keys points to determine the feasibility of exploiting this already existing protein resource and of developing food products enriched in oilseed proteins in France and Europa.