The big news coming out of 2019’s Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) of the NIAB trial grounds in Cambridge is that nationally declining house sparrows are back.
The award was collected by his successor, Dr Mark Stalham. Mark too was celebrating an award of his own – scooping the Agronomy award. As David recently stepped down as Head of the NIAB CUF, it’s time to look back at his career:
An integral part of the Potato Research group since joining in 1984, David succeeded Eric Allen as leader in 2008, supervising the transfer of CUF into NIAB in 2013.
The NIAB posters are grouped together into a range of topics and are now available for you to download below:
Funding for the studentships, awarded to the Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP), South Coast Biosciences (SoCoBio), which comprises of the universities of Southampton, Kent, Sussex, Portsmouth and the horticultural and agricultural research institute NIAB-EMR, is part of a £170m boost to fund 1,700 PhD researchers over five annual cohorts at academic institutions nationwide. The University of Southampton consortium is one of just 12 successful bids across the UK.
The Advanced Technology Horticultural Zone will comprise new science buildings including the multi-million pound development of four state-of-the-art glasshouses, an energy centre and other related facilities and infrastructure.
The glasshouses will incorporate high-tech imaging, robotics, precision irrigation rigs, research-standard LED lighting and CO2 systems to help scientists make advances in horticultural agronomy.
Water and fertiliser use in horticulture could be reduced, without lowering yields, by using biostimulants such as seaweed extract and beneficial microbes, says UK research organisation NIAB EMR.
Rt Hon Robert Goodwill MP, Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, launched two new strawberry varieties from the East Malling Strawberry Breeding Programme (EMSBC) based at NIAB EMR at the 2019 Fruit Focus event.
All three rusts (yellow rust, leaf rust and stem rust) are being reported by collaborators in the H2020 EU RustWatch project, which NIAB is a partner in, with severe yellow and leaf rust attacks reported in Spain, Belgium, Northern France, UK and Denmark. The following is from the RustWatch team:
The Community Resource for Wheat and Rice Transformation is a resource for UK plant scientists to apply for their genes to be transformed into wheat or rice free of charge, funded by the BBSRC’s Biological and Bioinformatic Resources fund (BBR).
The current round of the application process is open until 24th June 2019, for transformation slots in the autumn. See the application form for more information and to apply.
