The NatGenCrop project was presented during the 21th EUCARPIA Meeting of the Tomato Group in Plovdiv

An international team of researchers from CPSBB, Dr. Eng. Alicja Georgieva, Dr. Avanish Rai  and Dr. Nikolay Anachkov presented their scientific research within the NatGenCrop project during the 21th EUCARPIA Meeting of the Tomato Work Group which took place on 10-12 June 2025 in Plovdiv!

The event was organised by CPSBB’s partners, “Maritsa” Vegetable Crops Research Institute and the industrial company Geosemselect, attracting over 200 delegates from 24 countries worldwide. The conference started officially with speeches of the Regional Governor of Plovdiv Region – Prof. Dr. Hristina Yancheva, as well as a film dedicated to Acad. Hristo Daskalov – creator of the first hybrid tomato variety in Europe.

Main highlights of the 3-day event were innovative solutions and scientific approaches for facing challenges related to abiotic stress (drought and high temperatures) in tomatoes, presented in lectures, posters and interactive sessions on improving the joint work of science and industry.

The NatGenCrop project includes one of the large-scale scientific studies currently conducted at CPSBB. It aims at improving the nutritional properties and tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress in tomatoes and peppers. These two crops are economically important as they are among the most cultivated vegetables in the EU. Improving their stress tolerance through scientific methods is crucial since more frequent droughts, heatwaves, and instances of soil salinization (from poor water quality or degraded soils) threaten the crop yields nowadays. 

A significant amount of greenhouse and field experiments, combined with laboratory analyses have already been done by CPSBB researchers and a lot more are planned until 2027 so that the project could offer meaningful results for sustainable cultivation of stress resilient tomato and pepper crops worldwide.

The project is conducted under the Horizon Europe ERA Chairs programme, funded by the European Union. 

The scientific work is also supported by the European Regional Development Fund which ensures the sustainable development of CPSBB through the Program “Research Innovation and Digitalisation for Smart Transformation” 2021-2027.