Budding scientists, young and old, are invited to become a pathologist for the day as part of National Science Week – not with humans or animals, but with agricultural crops.
Latest results from NIAB’s Labtest service suggest that while Potato Leaf Roll Virus (PLRV) is largely absent this year, a quarter of farm-saved seed potatoes destined for the 2009 crop have been infected at some level with Potato Virus Y (PVY), one of the most serious potato viruses affecting crop yields and tuber quality.
David Baulcombe, Royal Society Research Professor and Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge, has joined the Board of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB).
The National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) is to repeat its two-week intensive training course in ‘Quantitative Genetics in Plant Breeding’, after the first session held earlier this year was heavily over-subscribed.
Targeted at both existing and prospective plant breeders, the post-graduate level course aims to update practitioners on the role and application of statistical and quantitative genetics in practical plant breeding programmes.
Hundreds of visitors to Ely Cathedral were able to learn first hand how innovative scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany are researching new crops.
They were invited by the eastern region’s NFU to participate in the cathedral’s harvest festival on 11 and 12 October with the underlying theme Farming Past, Present and Future.
The challenge for 21st century agriculture is to double food production over the next 40 years, on a finite amount of land and using increasingly scarce and costly resources.
Dr Tina Barsby, recently appointed chief executive of Cambridge-based National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB), has welcomed calls at the Conservative Party Conference from NFU President Peter Kendall for a fundamental shift in UK spending on agricultural research to meet emerging challenges of food security and climate change.
A group of 10 French farmers visited the National Institute of Agricultural Botany to learn first hand about issues facing their British counterparts – and discovered there were many similarities.
It was part of a fact-finding visit in East Anglia to look at renewable crop alternatives and gather information about business and financial issues facing cereal farmers.
A revived interest in the faba bean could see it playing an increasingly significant role in UK food production. Research scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge are hoping that their ground breaking research will result in improved, disease resistant faba beans becoming a more popular crop in Great Britain.
