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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