Luciano Pecetti

Luciano PECETTI (PhD)

Senior scientist
Centre for Animal Production and Aquaculture,Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA)
Address: viale Piacenza 29, 26900 Lodi, Italy
Phone: +39 0371 404753
E-mail: luciano.pecetti@crea.gov.it

Research positions

• Since January 2002: Senior scientist, CREA (formerly CRA and Istituto Sperimentale Colture Foraggere), Lodi, Lodi
• August 1990 – December 2001: Scientist, Istituto Sperimentale Colture Foraggere, Lodi, Italy
• June 1985 – June 1990: Research associate at ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria
• 1984: Research Fellow, Università degli Studi, Perugia, Italy

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy: University of Wales, Bangor, UK (research work performed in Syria, UK and Italy)
• Graduation (Laurea cum laude): Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Università degli Studi, Perugia, Italy

Main research topics

• Genetic improvement and genetic resources of cereals (barley; durum wheat; emmer wheat), forage crops (alfalfa; subterranean clover; tall fescue; cocksfoot; berseem clover; sulla; etc.), and feed grain legumes (pea; white lupin; soybean)
• Tolerance to abiotic (drought; salinity) and biotic stresses (grazing; plant competition)
• Breeding strategies based on ecophysiological, evolutionary and farmer-participatory approaches
• Breeding for organic systems
• Genomic selection

Scientific publications

• 258 (excluding abstracts), with 4 book chapters and 108 papers in journals with impact factor (mostly ISI Q1 or Q2). See: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=XBTgZf4AAAAJ&hl=it
• h-index: 32; i10 index: 93 (Google Scholar)

Plant varieties

• Subterranean clover: ‘Antas’ (registered in 1997; patent PBR Australia No. 1644 of Dec. 19, 2000); ‘Campeda’ (registered in 1997; patent PBR Australia No. 1643 of Dec. 19, 2000); Losa (registered in 1997); Tanca (registered in 2015)
• Alfalfa: ‘Verbena’ (registered in 2010); ‘Camporegio (registered in 2014); ‘Buttero (registered in 2019)

Responsibilities in international and national projects

• FP7-EraNet “Resilient, water- and energy-efficient forage and feed crops for Mediterranean agricultural systems (REFORMA)” (2012-2016). Leader of the WP ‘Ecological breeding strategies and variety selection’
• MiPAAF “Plant genetic resources / FAO Treaty (RGV-FAO)” (since 2017). Scientific responsible for the Centre
• MiPAAF “National Organic Seed Plan” (2011-2014). Scientific coordinator for the feed protein crops
• FP7-Core Organic “Coordinating organic plant breeding activities for diversity (COBRA)” (2013-2016). Leader of the Task ‘Control of seed-borne diseases with essential oils’
• FP6 “Improvement of native perennial forage plants for sustainability of Mediterranean farming systems (PERMED)” (2004-2009). Co-leader of the WP ‘Genotype × environment interactions through multisite networks of field trials, to analyse drought resistance, perenniality and water use efficiency’

Other responsibilities

• Member of the Scientific Committee of EUCARPIA Forage Crops & Amenity Grass Section (since 2019)

Teaching

• Contract professor of “Plant breeding applied to field crops” (2004-05) and “Crop science” (2011-12; 2012-13; 2013-14), University of Milan

Selected recent publications

• Pecetti L., P. Barre, S. Delaunay, P. Lambroni, P. Annicchiarico, B. Julier (2021). QTL analysis for grazing tolerance, autumn dormancy and growth habit offers prospects for marker-assisted selection in lucerne. Euphytica 217, 171. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10681-021-02897-7.pdf
• Severini S., M. Castellari, D. Cavalli, L. Pecetti (2021). Economic sustainability and riskiness of cover crop adoption for organic production of corn and soybean in northern Italy. Agronomy 11, 766. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/4/766
• Annicchiarico, P., L. Pecetti (2021). Comparison among nine alfalfa breeding schemes based on actual biomass yield gains. Crop Sci. 61, 2355-2370. https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/csc2.20464
• Annicchiarico, P., N. Nazzicari, M. Laouar, I. Thami-Alami, M. Romani, L. Pecetti (2020). Development and proof-of-concept application of genome-enabled selection for pea grain yield under severe terminal drought. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21, 2414. https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/21/7/2414
• Pecetti, L., A.M. Carroni, P. Annicchiarico (2020). Performance and adaptability of subterranean clover pure lines and line mixtures of different complexity across contrasting Mediterranean environments. Field Crops Res. 256, 107907. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378429020311916
• Annicchiarico P., P. Bottazzi, F. Ruozzi, L. Russi, L. Pecetti (2020). Lucerne cultivar adaptation to Italian geographic areas is affected crucially by the selection environment and encourages the breeding for specific adaptation. Euphytica 216, 50. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10681-020-02590-1.pdf
• Annicchiarico, P., N. Nazzicari, L. Pecetti, M. Romani, L. Russi (2019). Pea genomic selection for Italian environments. BMC Genomics 20, 603. https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12864-019-5920-x.pdf
• Annicchiarico, P., L. Russi, M. Romani, L. Pecetti, N. Nazzicari (2019). Farmer-participatory vs. conventional market-oriented breeding of inbred crops using phenotypic and genome-enabled approaches: a pea case study. Field Crops Res. 232, 30-39. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378429018312334
• Annicchiarico, P., N. Nazzicari, B. Ferrari, N. Harzic, A.M. Carroni, M. Romani, L. Pecetti (2019). Genomic prediction of grain yield in contrasting environments for white lupin genetic resources. Mol. Breed. 39, 142. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11032-019-1048-6
• Pecetti L., A.R. Marcotrigiano, L. Russi, M. Romani, P. Annicchiarico (2019). Adaptation of field pea to organic farming across different environments of Italy. Crop Pasture Sci. 70, 327-333. https://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/cp18216
• Borrelli L., L. Pecetti (2019). Wheat yield as a measure of the residual fertility after 20 years of forage cropping systems with different manure management in Northern Italy. Ital. J. Agron. 14:1359. https://agronomy.it/index.php/agro/article/view/1359/1102
• Riccioni L., L. Orzali, M. Romani, P. Annicchiarico, L. Pecetti (2019). Organic seed treatments with essential oils to control ascochyta blight in pea. Eur. J. Plant Pathol. 115, 831-840. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10658-019-01815-x.pdf
• Annicchiarico, P., M. Romani, L. Pecetti (2018). White lupin variation for adaptation to severe drought stress. Plant Breeding 137, 782-789. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pbr.12642
• Annicchiarico, P., I. Thami Alami, K. Abbas, L. Pecetti, R.A.M. Melis, C. Porqueddu (2017). Performance of legume-based annual forage crops in three semi-arid Mediterranean environments. Crop Pasture Sci. 68, 932-941. https://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/cp17068
• Biazzi, E., N. Nazzicari, L. Pecetti, E.C. Brummer, A. Palmonari, A. Tava, P. Annicchiarico (2017). Genome-wide association mapping and genomic selection for alfalfa (Medicago sativa) forage quality traits. PLoS ONE 12, e0169234. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169234
• Pecetti L., P. Annicchiarico, C. Scotti, M. Paolini, V. Nanni, A. Palmonari (2017). Effects of plant architecture and drought stress level on lucerne forage quality. Grass Forage Sci. 72, 714-722. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gfs.12272
• Pecetti L., P. Annicchiarico (2017). Assessing and overcoming genetic trade-offs in breeding grazing-tolerant lucerne. Crop Pasture Sci. 68, 952-957. https://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/cp16422
• Pecetti L., M. Mella, A. Tava (2016). Variation in herbage biochemical composition among pitch trefoil (Bituminaria bituminosa) populations from the Elba Island, Italy. J. Agric. Food Chem. 64, 195-203. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jafc.5b05050#
• Annicchiarico, P., N. Nazzicari, X. Li, Y. Wei, L. Pecetti, E.C. Brummer (2015). Accuracy of genomic selection for alfalfa biomass yield in different reference populations. BMC Genomics 16, 1020. https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-015-2212-y