B4EST: Adaptive BREEDING for productive, sustainable and resilient FORESTs under climate change

B4EST is an EU-funded H2020 project which focuses on adaptive breeding for productive, sustainable and resilient forests under climate change.

Climate change can increase forest vulnerability to damage and disease, reduce forest health and productivity, and cause economic losses. B4EST’s goal is to increase forest survival, health, resilience and productivity under these circumstances, while maintaining genetic diversity and key ecological functions, and fostering a competitive EU bio-based economy.  B4EST aims to provide forest tree breeders, forest owners, managers and policy makers with better scientific knowledge to deal with these issues:

• Better scientific knowledge on adaptation profiles and sustainable productivity, and added value of raw materials in important European tree species for forestry
• New and flexible adaptive tree breeding strategies
• Tree genotypes of highly adaptive and economical value
• Decision-support tools for the choice and use of Forest Reproductive Material (FRM) while balancing production, resilience and genetic diversity, including case studies developed with industrial partners
• Integrative performance models to guide FRM (forest reproductive material) deployment at stand and landscape level
• Economic analyses of risks/benefits/costs
• Policy recommendations