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Available to all - access the online PDF version of Issue 53 - Autumn 2023, featuring a special on lowland peat farming

She was welcomed to NIAB by Cambridgeshire Deputy Lord Lieutenant Caroline Bewes DL, and introduced to Lucy Miles, the Lord-Lieutenant’s Cadet, Dr Bharatkumar N Khetani, High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Councillor Peter Fane, Chair of South Cambridgeshire District Council.

The move will allow NIAB to concentrate on its soft fruit research, similar to its already established programmes in arable crops, as the organisation moves to prioritising the provision of translational research to benefit growers, consumers and the environment. It will also open up new opportunities to work with leading soft fruit breeders and propagators across the industry, including Bayer. 

Ideally you will bring experience and specialist knowledge to build on our vision for NIAB, providing an impartial and confidential sounding board to the NIAB CEO and Executive.

Whether it be your network of contacts and trusted partners, your ability to ask challenging questions and suggest innovative solutions or your diverse blend of skills that matches our strategic direction – you can help shape NIAB’s future.

The programme provides a unique opportunity for transformative and interdisciplinary food systems research, and there are two studentships now available with NIAB at East Malling.

These are species that have declined by 50% in the last 25 years and show no immediate signs of recovery (BTO, RSPB, JNCC 2015), making them birds of the highest conservation concern.

The headline this year was a pair of Corn Buntings. Known as ‘the fat bird of the barley’ in some circles, a male signing its distinctive jingle-jangle song was first observed at the end of May, and was later seen carrying food: a likely sign it was providing for chicks in a nest. Although seen in recent years, this is the first year of probable breeding.

Throughout the day, we shared images of staff at work from our HQ in Cambridge, East Malling in Kent and beyond to show you 24 hours of plant science into practice. Here are our best posts:

NIAB staff supporting #FARM24

NIAB has recently obtained a research grant to explore which soil properties affect apple canker severity in commercial apple orchards. The results could identify the optimum soil types which are less conducive to canker development and accelerate research on soil treatments to slow disease spread.

Mac was a quantitative geneticist of international standing, with a firm background in the plant breeding industry.

He joined NIAB in 2005 as part of our strategic bolstering of crop genetic research, working closely with Wayne Powell and Andy Greenland, and immediately made an impact. NIAB’s multi-parent ‘MAGIC’ populations  (a term he coined) were Mac’s brainchild, and he instigated, curated and taught NIAB’s highly-regarded Quantitative Methods in Plant Breeding two-week intensive course that influenced a generation of breeders.

Andy’s work at NIAB began in 2005, when incoming CEO Prof. Wayne Powell recruited Andy to oversee a new focus on genetic research that represented NIAB’s biggest strategic change since privatisation. Andy joined NIAB as a highly experienced, well-respected crop biotechnology lead, following many years working with Zeneca/Syngenta.