Applications open for 2018 NIAB Faculty Fellowship

For early career researchers spanning plant and crop science and those in aligned areas such as pathology, entomology, bioinformatics, engineering and robotics: NIAB wishes to support outstanding earl…

Scientists join forces with farmers, communities and local authorities in major flood mitigation project

Choosing different crops, building soil organic matter and planting more trees could allow farmers to reduce the risk of nearby rivers from bursting their banks miles downstream, according to an innov…

Sugarcane could cut carbon

Abandoned sugarcane plantations across the tropics could offer us a realistic, sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Ethanol produced from sugarcane has been one of the most successful short-term s…

Selective logging threatens biodiversity

A new study finds that even low levels of logging in the Amazon rainforest may lead to great losses in biodiversity. More than 403 million hectares of tropical forests worldwide have been earmarked fo…

Crops evolving ten millennia before experts thought

Ancient peoples began to systematically affect evolution of crops up to 30,000 years ago – ten millennia before experts previously thought, says new University of Warwick research Rice, wheat and ba…

Bees feast on fast food

Honey bees love the invasive plant Himalayan balsam and eat it like ‘fast food’ but, like humans, they thrive better on a varied diet. A study of honey bee bread in Lancashire and Cumbria bee hive…

Gotcha: the gene that takes the fun out of fungus

Not luck of the draw exactly but it was a random mutation in a convenient host that led to the discovery of a gene responsible for fungal disease that wrecks up to one fifth of the world’s cereal pr…

New executive director for The Sainsbury Laboratory

The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) has launched its new vision and announced the appointment of Prof Nicholas Talbot FRS as executive director. Based at Norwich Research Park (NRP), TSL is a world-leading…

Viewpoint: neonicotinoid pesticides in honey

Researchers reported in the journal Science this week that tests for five neonicotinoid compounds found at least one in 75% of honey samples from 198 sites around the world.

Walker to Head all Fresh Buying for Waitrose

Paul Walker is to become responsible for all fresh buying at Waitrose. Paul, who has been with Waitrose for 30 years, starts the role on Monday 9 October.  The position reports to Rupert Thomas, the …

Boosting breeding of carbohydrate heavyweight cassava

UK crop researchers could boost yields of a vitally important global food crop by going back to its wild relatives to find new sources of disease resistance. Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is an importan…

Continental controls needed to maintain fightback against tree diseases

Tighter controls on timber and plant movements into Europe are necessary to prevent further disastrous effects of plant diseases, a new study of the ash dieback pathogen advises. The call to action fo…

Changing of the guard – research sheds light on how plants breathe

New research is set to change the textbook understanding of how plants breathe. In research published in Plant Journal, a team led by Professor Richard Morris from the John Innes Centre, Norwich, Pro…

Crowning the King of the Crops: Sequencing the White Guinea Yam Genome

An international collaboration involving the Earlham Institute, Norwich, UK, and the Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre, Japan, has for the first time provided a genome sequence for the white Guinea …

Driving out blight with dual control

Combining methods of disease control rather than relying on a single resistance strategy can extend the durability of crops by many years, confirms computer modelling that draws on classical populatio…

Organic phosphorus call to action

A non-renewable resource, phosphorus (P) is essential for crop and food production. However, due to inefficient use and limited global reserves, inorganic P fertilisers will become less economically v…