CoBreeding Project Annual Meeting

This is the focus of the CoBreeding project, a targeted initiative under the PEPR AgroEcoNum programme, which held a meeting on 24 and 25 June 2026.

This project brings together specialists in animal and plant sciences, social sciences and data science. What makes this consortium unique is that it deals with both animal and plant species!

The meeting opened with a presentation on innovation and foresight by Dominique Laousse, which provided an opportunity to begin discussions on how to capitalise on the CoBreeding results and the project’s long-term implications.

Early-career scientists were also in the spotlight:

• Philippine Coeugnet presented a co-design approach for chickens and cereals
• Virgilo Freitas presented a study of wheat response standards in single-variety cultivation versus in a mixture with peas (PhD)
• Simona Antonios demonstrated that selection based on an index incorporating resilience measured in controlled environments improves performance in disturbed environments; she also presented how to use health data from crossbred animals to improve the selection of purebred animals (postdoctoral research)
• Tristan Kistler discussed selection for performance stability in fish farming
• Clémentine Langlet presented her exploration of genetic diversity in the interactions between wheat and Zymoseptoria tritici with a view to improving the control of wheat septoria (PhD)
• Irving ARCIA-RUIZ took us beyond cultivated alfalfa in an exploration of the wild genetic diversity of the Medicago sativa complex as a resource for breeding (PhD)

Well done and thank you to the project’s co-leaders, Florence Phocas, Alain Charcosset, Christine Dillmann and Julie Labatut, as well as the whole community!