News

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has recently announced the first tranche of its £7 million Crop Improvement Research Club (CIRC) grants. The projects funded by BBSRC, the Scottish Government and 14 companies representing plant breeders, farmers and food processors, will carry out research to improve the quality and yield of oilseed rape, barley and wheat.

One of the awards goes to Dr John Walsh (a research leader of Plant-Virus Interactions), Dr Graham Teakle (a brassica geneticist) and Dr Guy Barker (a researcher in brassica genomics) for a project entitled ‘Exploiting sources of resistance to Turnip yellows virus for deployment in oilseed rape’. Turnip yellows virus can reduce the seed yield of oilseed rape crops in the UK by up to 30%. Infected plants are largely symptomless and hence most farmers are unaware of the presence of the virus. This project looks to oilseed rape plants and wild relatives that have natural resistance to this virus with a view to identifying genetic markers that can be used for introducing these resistances into commercial varieties via modern breeding techniques.

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On Tuesday 29 March Dr Rosemary Collier, Director of Warwick Crop Centre, was awarded the Marsh Horticultural Research Award 2010. The award is sponsored by the Marsh Christian Trust in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and awarded annually to recognise individuals who have made an outstanding contribution or conducted long term research into fruit or vegetable growing.

Dr Collier won the award for ‘An outstanding contribution to horticultural science through entomological research’.

Research led by Dr Lorenzo Frigerio, has opened up a new path to produce water efficient seeds that will be a significant tool to help improve drought resistance, and ensure global food security.  The research not only provides the best map to date of the key protein that appears to be the principal gateway for water intake during seed germination - it also actually provides the right map as it appears much of the research to date was focussed on a much less relevant protein.

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On 24 January the Government published the Foresight report on Global Food and Farming Futures. This highlights the measures required to be able to feed a growing population and the challenges of farming in a changing climate.

BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme visited Warwick Crop Centre to interview Dr Rosemary Collier, Director of Warwick Crop Centre, and geneticist Dr Graham Teakle to discuss how research is tackling some of the problems raised by the report.

Listen to the Farming Today programme on iPlayer (The Crop Centre item starts at 6:34 mins)