I’ve always taken care of sustainable development of agriculture in marginal areas. First of Italian mountains and Tunisian oasis in bachelor and master thesis respectively. Then I’ve worked in Niger for an NGO in a development cooperation project. Finally, to close the circle, I’m returned working on Italians mountain studying chestnut orchards thanks to this PhD.

Plant resource efficiency and adaptation are essential to improve orchards sustainability. Precision agriculture and plant breeding can help both. By the first side, innovative proximal and remote sensing techniques will be evaluated in predicting plant stresses before the appearance of visual symptoms. While, by the second, the creation of a genetic linkage map will help in understanding which genes are linked to useful agronomical traits.