The investment will transform plant-based scientific research facilities across the South East and strengthen the competitiveness of Britain’s horticulture, food and drink industries.
csfbSMART – ‘Sharing Management and Agronomy Research Tools’ - has been set-up to test management methods and tools for use against the pest on UK farms, with oilseed rape growers provided with information on how to implement and assess these management strategies over the next three years.
Welcoming the Government’s long-awaited consultation on plans to regulate the products of precision breeding techniques in the same way as conventional breeding methods, rather than as GMOs, leading scientists and cross-party politicians have highlighted the potential opportunities of these advances to support more sustainable farming and food production systems.
BCPC has relaunched its Online UK Pesticide Guide platform with a host of new features including an easy-to-use product search and comparison tool.
“We felt it was really time to provide an updated picture of wild oat herbicide resistance, and also a general picture of where we are with wild oats currently across the UK, so we asked for wild oat samples to be submitted after harvest, along with a detailed questionnaire, ” said NIAB’s weed biology specialist, John Cussans.
There are two species of wild oats that are weeds in the UK – the common wild oat and the winter wild oat.
In a landmark discovery for global wheat production an international consortium of crop researchers, including NIAB in the UK, have sequenced the genomes for 15 important wheat varieties used in breeding programmes around the world.
The results will enable plant scientists and breeders to much more quickly identify influential genes for improved yield, pest resistance and other important crop traits.
Building on a wealth of existing investment in UK wheat R&D, including the UK Research and Innovation BBSRC-funded Designing Future Wheat programme (DFW), the newly formed IWYP – European Winter Wheat Hub will accelerate research discoveries from the UK and globally into commercial plant breeding.
A public-private partnership, the IWYP - European Winter Wheat Hub will combine novel traits discovered by collaborative international teams into a range of high performing European winter wheat genetic backgrounds for assessment and use in winter wheat breeding programmes.
NIAB has launched a new molecular diagnostics service on becoming a partner of the AgriTech Centre Crop Health and Protection (CHAP).
NIAB will host the new service at its Cambridge site, for use by researchers in both commercial and academic organisations.
The Crop Science Centre is an alliance between the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and NIAB.
An independent assessment of the value of research taking place at crop science organisation NIAB has revealed an 18-fold return on investment to the wider UK economy.
The economic impact report, by Donald Webb of Brookdale Consulting, concluded that for every £1 spent on research at NIAB, at least £17.60 is returned to the UK economy through improved production efficiency, economic growth, import substitution, export earnings and inward investment.
