The CropXR Institute was founded in the summer of 2023. Its central office is located at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. It is a unique public-private collaboration that comprises scientific institutions, industrial partners and technology innovation companies. The institute unites a community of experts stemming from disciplines such as plant sciences, data sciences and social sciences. All those engaged with CropXR are driven to arm agricultural production to make the field less vulnerable to climate change. The activities of CropXR aim to contribute to reducing the dependency of agriculture on artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Moreover, by strengthening agricultural production in many ways, CropXR stimulates growth opportunities for relevant economic sectors in the Netherlands. This article was written on behalf of CPVO to introduce CropXR to all those curious to learn more about this outstanding collaboration.
CPVO: Mrs Teunissen, can you tell us something about the aims and activities of CropXR?
Hedwich Teunissen (HT):
CropXR is dedicated to accelerating much-needed changes in agriculture. In today’s world, we have to deal with climate change, which is a wicked problem. There are many more challenges such as reduced food security and a growing world population. Climate change can severely disturb agricultural production. Think of weather extremes that cause excessive rain or drought. Many farmers around the world experience how their yields go to waste because of weather extremes. Hence, the need for solid solutions is urgent.
Crops that are more resilient can be part of these solutions. Resilient crops would be able to better cope with environmental changes and challenges. CropXR is on a mission to make crops more resilient, climate-adapted and sustainable. New crop varieties should become less dependent on harmful fertilizers and pesticides. In addition, they should be better capable to withstand weather extremes, yet the quality of the produce and the yield should remain high.
The CropXR team studies which genes and processes interact when a plant experiences stressors such as flooding, drought, or salinization. Our approach is holistic and interdisciplinary. We deploy a systems biology perspective. This means that the team studies the interconnected functioning of the entire plant. It enables researchers to map which building blocks of a plant are involved in resilience. 
CropXR is committed to develop innovative smart data breeding technology. For this, the CropXR team uses existing data sets as well as data accumulated by our own experiments. Next, advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence are deployed to develop mechanistic models. These models enable the analysis and prediction of resilience traits. Once we better understand how a plant responds to, for instance, attacks by insects or diseases, we can better differentiate between resilient and less resilient plants. This knowledge can then be utilized in the breeding process to select the most resilient plant which activate its defense system at the right moment to ward off external threats. This means that less pesticides are needed to support the plant. This is a win-win situation on many levels: the plant does not succumb to the external attacks and the farmer does not lose its yield. The consumer can still buy its food for fair prices, and the environment does not suffer.
The impact of the new smart data breeding methodology will be significant. It will give breeders more control over fickle environmental circumstances. Moreover, it has the capacity to transform agriculture and strengthen the food chain.
CPVO: What makes the smart data breeding technology so revolutionary?
HT: In the last approximately twenty years, knowledge of the genome of many plants has become available to plant scientists. This has meant a tremendous leap forward. Today, plant scientists can predict rather well how a plant will respond to a single stressor such as a disease or drought.
However, when more than a few genes are involved, this prediction becomes challenging task? if not impossible. The smart data breeding technology will be groundbreaking as it gives insights into the interplay of various genes when the plant is exposed to multiple stressors. The new plant models that we develop will give information on the response of a plant when it experiences biotic stresses (for instance bacteria), abiotic stresses (like temperature) or a combination of both. Moreover, we will unravel which trade-offs occur when a plant defends itself. Our team works on pinpointing the underlying building blocks or gene combinations that determine a plant’s resilience and the effectiveness of this resilience.
This specific and complex knowledge is currently lacking. If breeders can use this innovative knowledge, they will be more equipped to resist today’s global challenges.
CPVO: CropXR will first test the smart data technology on a few crops: brassicas (which also entails cauliflower), lettuce, onion, potato, tomato, and chrysanthemum. Can you tell us more about this selection?
HT: Breeding is a long and complicated process. Take, for instance, the development of a new potato variety. Currently, this can take up to over ten years. Then many more years are needed before the new variety can be launched on the market and consumers can eat it.
CropXR hopes to contribute to accelerating these intense and long breeding processes. We have a ten-year plan. Within these ten years, we aim to produce tangible results for this selection of diverse crops.
There are various reasons why we have selected these specific crops. Firstly, they are important crops for the industrial partners in our consortium. Over many years, our partners have gained knowledge of these crops. This is of course valuable. In addition, these crops are cultivated all over the world and have a high nutritional value. Likewise, the economic value is important.
Moreover, these crops enable us to gain knowledge of resilience on many levels. Some of the crops are cultivated in greenhouses, whereas others grow in the field. This means that the crops face different challenges. In the field, crops can experience flooding or drought. This will not happen in a greenhouse where the temperature or watering conditions can be controlled. However, other threats such as insects or fungi loom in a greenhouse. Consequently, the questions related to a plant’s resilience are different.
Another reason to select these specific crops is their genetic diversity and complexity. All crops vary greatly genetically. These crops represent this variety. They differ in genome size, the number of sets of chromosomes in a cell or organism (ploidy level) and heterogeneity or other characteristics.
CPVO: Can you tell us more about the ten-year plan of CropXR?
HT: Our ten-year plan is divided into two phases. During the first five years, we will conduct our research on Arabidopsis, a so-called ‘model’ plant that makes it very suitable for research. We will concentrate on gathering experimental data and will use the already available knowledge on Arabidopsis. With the help of AI, this data will be transformed into models that will give us insights into the inner workings of the involved resilience processes. Think of the links between genotype, metabolic pathway, cells and tissues, and external stress. These models allow an efficient translation of findings from Arabidopsis to crop species. Furthermore, they enable us to better understand crop resilience and how this can be improved.
Since we aim to deliver hands-on and concrete results, we will immediately apply these insights. The cauliflower is part of our crop selection. It is a so-called ‘flagship crop’ that we will work on from the start. This means that we will immediately use the knowledge we gain and work on increasing the resilience of the cauliflower. We do this with all our partners which means that all the various teams within our consortium join their forces.
As for the other crops: we will test the smart data breeding technology on these crops in the ensuing five years. This should lead to cutting-edge practical breeding tools. After ten years, we expect to present more final results for all crops. This means we can then move to another phase which entails adding new crops to improve their resilience. In the long term, our models should support increased resilience for every existing crop.
CPVO: CropXR uses large data sets and develops its own data infrastructure; the ‘Resilience Hub’. Can you tell us more about this?
HT: We will use enormous data sets. Our data scientists estimate that our project will create a data volume of approximately several petabytes in the next few years. However, bear in mind that this volume is relatively modest compared to the data used in, for instance, medical sciences or astronomy.
We are keen on using high-quality data for our models since the accuracy of our models and predictions depends on this. Our team of data scientists, led by a dedicated technology director, is working on creating a robust data infrastructure to store, manage and access all this data properly and safely. It will be based on the FAIR principles (Fair, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). We intend to create an inclusive data culture. All those within the consortium should be able to access the data.
This solid foundation will lead the way to realize one of our ambitions, which is to develop a ‘Resilience Hub’. This hub should be an extensive collection of knowledge on crop resilience that will corral knowledge, data, tools and experts related to this subject. It will be a treasure trove for all those working in this field. We strive to realize this ambition in the years to come. The requirements and possibilities to access the hub by those outside the consortium will also be further developed in the coming years. We have only just started, and a lot of work needs to be done first. We are eager to keep all those in the seed sector informed on our progress and deliver cutting-edge results in due time!
CPVO: This consortium involves diverse partners, from universities to biotech firms and breeders. How do you foster effective collaboration among partners with different goals? And what has been key to CropXR’s success so far?
HT: The composition of our partnership is indeed unique. All partners contribute in a different way with their specific knowledge and experience. The plurality of perspectives leads to an interdisciplinary approach and a wealth of knowledge.
One element of the success of CropXR so far has been the close collaboration between all partners from the start. In addition, all partners contribute as well as really gain something from this collaboration. Our industrial partners, for instance, make financial investments to enable this partnership. They take risks. Once the smart data breeding technology will hit the market, this will pay off. The industrial partners will be frontrunners and have an advantage.
CPVO: The Intellectual Property of CropXR is currently only shared with the CropXR community. Are you open to welcome new partnerships and will the technology become available to broader audiences as well?
HT: CropXR is a dynamic and vibrant consortium that will constantly make progress and evolve. The current structure might, therefore, change in due time. CropXR strives to have a significant and positive impact on sustainability, agriculture and economic development. This means that we would like to welcome new partners and collaborations in the future. Those new partners, which could be either small breeders or breeders in emerging economies, should then be able to use our IP at some point as well. 