The progress achieved by agriculture, in the last century, is in large part due to the availability of more productive plants thanks to the activity of genetic improvement, a technology that takes advantage of the possibility of making crosses, intra and/or interspecific, allowing to combine, in a plant, characteristics possessed by different plants. A technology that requires time, resources and with a result that is not always certain. Today, and more so in the future, agriculture faces new challenges, from the consequences of climate change, which, by subjecting plants to abiotic stresses and facilitating the spread of diseases, makes crop production difficult, to the needs of a population that is increasingly attentive to what it finds on its plate.

Science is making available new possibilities that ensure the expected results, and quickly. It is not a matter of producing GMOs, but of using techniques of assisted evolution, such as “Cis-genesis” and “genome-editing,” which make it possible to modify a characteristic of the plant, without changing its other traits in the least. The conference, dedicated to the memory of Prof. Luigi Maria Monti, aims to illustrate some of these new techniques, to which he dedicated an uncommon commitment through research and teaching.

The conference will be held on March 12, 2024 at the Academy ‘s library (Scuderie Vecchie di Villa Torlonia, Via Lazzaro Spallanzani, 1/A).

Please notify your attendance at segreteria@accademiaxl.it

Programme Evolution of plant breeding