Waitrose working to encourage sustainable food production
I’m Chris Wyver, and my PhD project at the University of Reading aims to understand whether flowering dates of fruit trees and flight dates of their pollinators are remaining in sync in the changing climate. Historically, flowers and pollinators were well matched in time, however, recent evidence suggests that trees are flowering earlier than their […]
Written by: Laura Reeves I am a first year PhD student on the Waitrose CTP programme at Reading University. My research currently focuses on how tri-trophic interactions between pears, pests and natural enemies are impacted by climate change. Pear flowering times: Pears are an economically important crop within the UK, contributing to 4.0% of total […]
Written by: Hannah McGrath Whether it’s recent Space X launches or the Perseverance Rover landing on Mars, there seems to be a lot going on above our heads. If anyone reading this follows me on Twitter, you’ll potentially note that I occasionally get far too excited about space. But sometimes, it can be hard to […]
Rothamsted Reseach held their RRES symposium (online) between 22 – 26 February 2021, with award successes for a number of Rothamsted’s WCTP students: Final Year Awards: Out of 23 final year talks first prize went to … Hannah McGrath – “Bespoke flowering strips for pest control in carrots” Accessibility Award: (voted by non-scientific judges) was […]
Staggering statistics released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Key Statistics and Facts from the Report based on Food and Agriculture IPBES (2019) 300%: increase in food crop production since 1970 23%: land areas that have seen a reduction in productivity due to land degradation >75%: global food crop types […]
Up to half of plant and animal species in the world’s most naturally rich areas, such as the Amazon and the Galapagos, could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change if carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked. The Amazon, Miombo Woodlands in Southern Africa, and south-west Australia are among […]
Efforts to protect tropical forests in Southeast Asia for the carbon they store may fail because protection payments are too low – according to University of East Anglia research. A study published today in Nature Communications finds that schemes designed to protect tropical forests from clearance based on the carbon they store do not pay enough to […]
Scientists have taken a step forward in their efforts to tackle serious crop pests by reducing the sensitivity of biopesticides to sunlight Insect pests consume around a third of all the crops we grow, sometimes threatening food security. The main way of controlling these pests is by spraying chemical pesticides but these can be damaging […]
NIAB EMR, in a joint UK–China research programme, has discovered several strains of the strawberry disease Verticillium wilt (Verticillium dahliae), belonging to two different groups, that act in very different ways. The results are already being used by plant breeders in the development of a new generation of wilt resistant varieties.
A passion for sustainable supply chains and the desire to do something useful, brought Becky Swinn to Lancaster University. Now her research project comparing the carbon footprint of British, Dutch and Kenyan cut flowers has won the prize for the Best Collaborative Project at the Lancaster Environment Centre. But, like many others, she wasn’t sure […]
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