News article

NIAB's Director of Crops and Agronomy, speaking at the HGCA Agronomists Conference in December 2012, on fungicide performance in wheat and barley in 2012

Plant scientists at NIAB are playing a leading role in a new multi-agency research project to improve the sustainability of vital food crops in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The Potato Agronomy Unit at Cambridge University Farms (CUF) is set to become part of NIAB in a move which strengthens the future of world-leading potato agronomy research at the Cambridge-based Unit, while opening up promising new areas of collaborative research to meet the future needs of UK potato growers and their customers.

PGRO have released the new Recommended Lists for Peas and winter and spring beans which were decided earlier this month.

As well as updating variety performance after the difficult 2012 growing season, the Lists introduce three new spring beans and two new grain peas.

The beans are Vertigo and Fanfare, from LS Plant Breeding and Boxer, from Senova. They are all very high yielding with general suitability for the premium export market.

NIAB has been awarded £620,000 to provide a community resource for wheat transformation.

The five-year project is funded by the BBSRC’s Biological and Bioinformatic Resources fund (BBR) and will give UK plant scientists free access to the most efficient public wheat transformation system currently available anywhere in the world.

PRESS RELEASE

Addressing shortcomings in current agronomic practice is one of the first steps needed to tackle the UK’s yield plateau in winter wheat and oilseed rape, according to an HGCA study published today.

The Yield Plateau report was commissioned by HGCA and Defra in 2011 to look at the factors limiting increased yields in the UK and to address gaps in current industry research.

If waiting to drill check the latest safe sowing dates for winter wheat varieties before switching to spring cropping advises NIAB TAG.

Many commonly grown winter wheat varieties can be sown until the end of January with some suitable for mid and late February drillings says NIAB TAG’s head of technical services Ben Freer.

The NIAB TAG Drilled Onion Variety Demo, funded by HDC, took place at our Cambridge Farm today (1 November) with Bruce Napier providing variety commentary and a summary of the variable growing season. Each box representing a variety trial plot from sites around England.

Our first look at the winter wheat and winter oilseed rape variety demo plots on the NIAB TAG stand at the 2013 Cereals Event site in Lincolnshire.

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