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UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council awards £13M to harness science for better crops
London, United Kingdom
January 9, 2007

The UK's primary public funder of bioscience research has today announced over £13M of research projects to turn ideas from excellent basic plant science into practical applications to benefit the UK's farmers and consumers.

With the challenges to agriculture posed by climate change and an increasing need to grow and farm in sustainable ways the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded funding to 18 projects that will aim to address real-world issues. New research will exploit the world-class basic plant science and plant genetics in the UK to improve the sustainability of agriculture and look at problems including:

*How to grow crops able to cope with climate change *How to breed vegetables that remain nutritious after days in the fridge *How to grow more effective biofuels to help reduce the UK's dependence on fossil fuels.
*How to exploit plants more effectively to produce better bread, beer, biodegradable carrier bags and for other applications.

These and other projects funded by the BBSRC Crop Science Initiative are described in a full media briefing available at http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media/briefings/crop_launch.pdf

Professor Julia Goodfellow, BBSRC Chief Executive, said: "The UK is home to some of the best plant science in the world. We want to harness this and exploit it to address some of the pressing issues that we face. BBSRC's aim is to support basic crop research that will produce outcomes to make farming more sustainable and able to meet the challenges of a changing environment."

The BBSRC Crop Science Initiative follows an earlier review of the Council's support for crop science which found that UK crop research needed to better translate basic plant science into new crop varieties to help growers, industry and consumers. The projects announced today are intended to help do this.

MEDIA BRIEFING

INTRODUCTION

Crop science –exploiting genetics for better crops

The UK is a world leader in plant science research, but the challenge is to apply this knowledge to the benefit of industry and society. The strategic importance of crop science was highlighted in a 2003 BBSRC review, which emphasised how the advances in UK crop research needed to be applied to a greater extent in plant breeding and agriculture. As a result of this review, BBSRC has now funded 18 projects through a £13.3M crop science initiative to turn ideas from basic plant research into practical applications for crop breeders.

The aim of the initiative is to apply principles of sustainable development to future crop production, using the potential of biotechnology to sustain crop yields, and extend the range of products while reducing negative environmental impacts of agriculture.

Potential benefits for farmers, growers and breeders include:

  • Improved shelf life for broccoli
    A Warwick HRI project, receiving almost half a million pounds, aims to identify genes involved in broccoli quality to enable production of broccoli varieties with improved shelf life.More starch variety for improved bread and beer.Scientists at the John InnesCentre and NIAB will collect and assess wheat and barley varieties from around the world, developing a greater variety of starch for the improvement of a range of products. The project has received over £1.3M of funding.

  • Enhancing wheat resistance to insect pest
    Researchers at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle and the Central Science Laboratory have received almost £750,000 to investigate wheat plants’genes for self defence against wheat bulb fly and cereal aphids. They will study how the insects tolerate defence strategies, and develop new strategies for environmentally-friendly insecticide.

  • Improving willow biomass yields for bioenergy
    he project will investigate the regulation of coppicing in willow to improve the biomass yield from willows. The research at the University of York and RothamstedResearch has received almost £1M of funding.

  • Identifying genes for predictable seedling growth
    Researchers at the Warwick HRI aim to identify genes which influence seed vigour and how they regulate germination.

  • Controlling wheat’s defence against aphids
    The aim of this RothamstedResearch project is to develop means to switch on the production of wheat plants’natural defence compounds against aphids only when necessary, conserving the plant's energy and reducing the development of pest resistance.

Full briefing: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media/briefings/crop_launch.pdf

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