Public Funding for James Hutton Limited

The SporeDRONES project is led by Geo.Geo Ltd. in partnership with the James Hutton Institute, Allium & Brassica Agronomy, Vegetable Consultancy Service Ltd., East of Scotland Growers, and James Hutton Ltd. Our aim is to combine unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology with portable molecular diagnostic tools to provide early detection of airborne inoculum of crop pathogens. Air sampling for crop pathogens is currently limited to static ground based monitoring, whereas the proposed mobile aerial system will be able to rapidly sweep large geographic areas at multiple heights in the atmosphere using a single piece of equipment and provide rapid pathogen identification. Results will be transformed into actionable information and maps using cloud-based technology and desktop / web-based GIS environments combined with newly developed epidemiological models. This will enable a targeted and rapid response to disease outbreaks and an effective tool for communicating risks to a wide audience. SporeDRONES can be used for: (i) intense surveillance of areas where there is a high likelihood of disease outbreaks; (ii) rapid response to local outbreaks; (iii) risk assessment to confirm the presence of inoculum and define the areas for eradication and protection measures; (iv) advanced warning at larger regional- and landscape-scales; and (v) follow-up surveillance to confirm that aerobiological threats have been eliminated. SporeDRONES will serve as a platform technology to which other diagnostic tools and epidemiological models can be added. It is recognised that the biosecurity of island nations is particularly vulnerable with the spread and establishment of new pests and pathogens through aerial transmission and infected plant material, the latter driven by global commerce. Both pathways of invasion depend upon a favourable climate for the establishment of the pest and pathogen. The biosecurity fragility of the UK is further enhanced with the current trajectory of a changing climate to warmer and wetter weather patterns ideal for many oomycete mediated diseases. SporeDRONES offers a genuine opportunity to mitigate the impact of new (and exisiting) aerial pests and pathogens by developing a holistic package from sampling to actionable information that would provide a rapid and user friendly early warning platform for growers and agronomists. Whilst developed and validated against two diseases, potato late blight and onion downy mildew, the platform technology is flexible and can be easily transferred and deployed onto other pest and pathogens.

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Food and drink packaging (\>$300Bn/year global market) relies on plastics and a variety of chemicals now considered hazardous to health and dangerous to the environment. These chemicals usually impart barrier properties, non-stick surfaces, flame retardancy and antimicrobial activities which are required for food/drink packaging. New regulations are being introduced globally to limit/restrict use of these chemicals, meaning that new biosafe barriers for food/drink packaging need to be found, which will also support consumer demand for safe and environmentally friendly materials. This project will develop new biodegradable and biosafe materials with oil/water resistant surfaces, and flame retardant and antimicrobial properties which can be deployed to the food/drink packaging sector. Our industry partners will develop low energy environmentally friendly enzymatic processes to break down waste potato and sugar beet to extract nanocelluloses. Nanocelluloses have remarkable tensile strength, flexibility and absorbancy/barrier properties and small quantities added to paper mixes greatly improves strength and robustness. These characterised nanocelluloses produced by industry partners will have functional groups attached to them using non-hazardous chemicals and proteins, which will impart oil/water resistance, antimicrobial activities and fire retardant properties. ISO accredited analytical approaches will confirm that these functional groups have been suitably integrated into the nanocelluloses. The oil/water resistance and flame retardancy of the novel materials will be assessed, as will their antiviral and antibacterial activities. Nanocelluloses with suitable functionality will be provided to partners for incorporation into paper fibres in different ratios and dried down or applied as a coating to paper. These will be physically and chemically characterised by partners to confirm the presence of functional groups. Partners will assess the composite materials tensile strength, oil/water resistance, water vapour transmission rate, gas barrier properties, flammability, antimicrobial activities and biodegradability in soil. Materials that are the most promising will be earmarked for scaled up production assessment and also for life cycle analysis which will indicate economic and environmental costs and energy burdens of producing these materials. All project partners will protect IP prior to discussing these products with their existing customers, who are global leaders in the food/packaging industry. Further market analysis will be carried out to potentially roll out the technologies to other market sectors.

In this project we are building a novel pest/disease forecasting service that uses machine learning 'ensemble' techniques to imbue highly localised predictive power and wide pest-crop-geography application potential. This broad-spectrum approach to forecasting is highly innovative and has the potential to drive synergistic improvements in the usage of inputs across all of the UK's most important crops. This innovation will drive a reduction in agro-chem usage, increase in crop yields and reduce the carbon footprint of UK agriculture.

Due to emergent pandemic threats the global use of personal protection equipment (PPE) has hugely increased (in particular face masks). Most of this PPE is single use, contains plastics, is not easily recyclable and generally is disposed of via landfill or discarded into the environment. It is estimated that if each person in the UK uses a single disposable mask each day for a year this would result in 66, 000 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste (which would be a reservoir of infection) and have ten-fold more of a climate change impact than reusable masks. Interestingly, most of these materials are prone to "wetting out" and are poorly absorbant which raises transmission risks, and moreover they lack the requisite antiviral/antibacterial activities required for robust protection. There are however very few antiviral PPE technologies readily available in the public domain and those that are suffer from complex manufacturing methods, high expense, poor reusability, poor washability and rapidly lose their antiviral activities. There is now a pressing need to develop completely new PPE materials which confer safety and comfort by being highly absorbant, breathable and can actively sequester viruses and kill them and have potent antimicrobial activity. It is also crucial that these PPE materials are made from existing waste streams, be multiuse, re-washable, compostible, recyclable and cheap; reducing the huge environmental burden and supporting the emergent bioeconomy for new products. This project will produce novel PPE materials (in particular face masks) which satisfies all these criteria and address a major market and environmental weakness. This project will produce unrivalled novel ISO validated multiuse, washable, environmentally friendly PPE materials which have potent antiviral activities, while also considering antibacterial properties since warm and moist PPE masks may support bacteria. This work builds on our existing publications and patent portfolios with industry partners and also helps drive our novel products to the face mask market and beyond, while also enabling us to identify interesting antiviral/antibacterial properties which will later be investigated to unpick new potential pathogen control mechanisms.

_Phytophthora infestans_ is the pathogen that caused the Great Irish Potato Famine and today over 170 described species of _Phytophthora_ cause crop disease on a global scale, costing commercial crop industries billions of dollars. The UK fruit industry and raspberry particularly has been decimated by _Phytophthora_ root rot (PRR) with an 80% reduction in field production leading to a smaller pot based short term industry[][0] supported by extensive fruit imports. Methods to control infection and spread are limited by current legislation that limit the use of prophylactic fungicides and increase the importance of novel control methods based on host resistance, growing media and watering. _Phytophthora_ _rubi_ and _P. fragariae_ are PRRs which spread through plant propagation, growth media and water flow in plantations. Manipulating the physical, chemical and biological properties of the growth medium has the potential to play a key role in inhibiting PRR. Commercial plant growth substrates can be designed specifically to meet a crops individual needs with regards to nutrient requirement, water management and grower preferences. Manipulating the growing media's physical, chemical and biological properties can lead to a stronger healthier root and plant system, while also limiting and actively suppressing the growth and spread of harmful root pathogens, such as PRR. Specific additives have previously been incorporated into growing media to control and prevent other root pathogens and pests such as Vine Weevil, _Fusarium_ spp. and _Pythium_ spp. A recent JHI study identified multiple responses triggered in a PRR resistant raspberry plant upon challenge with _P._ _rubi_, including a mechanism, which has the potential to improve a plants resistance to PRR. The growth medium can be improved by the manipulation of these plant-derived chemical signals that are normally induced upon pathogen challenge in resistant cultivars, to boost the immune capabilities of susceptible cultivars. Using molecular methods such as gene expression, genetic markers and fluorescent pathogen cultures we can track disease development in the root-zone environment in different growing media substrate formulations. The innovative range of growth substrate additives developed in this project will stimulate raspberry root growth signal to improve the root system under a controlled irrigation regime and secondly actively inhibit the growth and spread of root pathogens. Establishment of optimal raspberry growing conditions integrated with early pathogen detection and control of PRR spread will transform raspberry agronomy, maximising yield and securing the UK soft fruit industry with application to other crops worldwide. [0]: #_msocom_1

Potato is the second most important crop in Kenya and is grown for food and as a source of income. The vast majority of growers in Kenya are smallholder farmers. Pests and diseases cause huge losses to crop production across the world, including Kenya. Potato production in Kenya is being seriously impacted by an emerging introduced pathogen, the Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN). This proof of concept proposal aims to demonstrate that potato cultivars that combine the quality traits favoured by Kenyan growers and the women who are responsible for the majority of food preparation in rural Kenya, with resistance to the predominant PCN species present in Kenya, represent a valid target for breeding programmes and subsequent commercialisation.

Throughout their life cycle, plants are subjected to many adverse environmental conditions including low light levels and periods of drought or extreme temperatures which can dramatically affect plant survival and limit productivity. In order to cope with such stresses, plants adjust metabolically and physiologically. Unanticipated variation in crop development is already in evidence in a range of crop varieties resulting in yield instability with significant negative impacts on the rural economy, environment and wellbeing. Cherry and blueberry are prime examples where, depending on season, a condition known as Cherry June Drop can occur where unripe fruit fall from the tree to excessive levels, drastically reducing yield. Similarly in blueberry widely varying yield is achieved depending on season with factors such as bud initiation being important. Currently no methods exist to understand when and how a plant's development has been disrupted or to characterise the key environmental signals responsible. The lack of knowledge in these two areas severely limits the capacity for active crop management to optimise yield or to breed for future environmental resilience. This work will use a field based plant and environmental monitoring approach to develop environmental models of blueberry bud initiation and cherry June Drop. We will attempt to identify signals that arise from the plants short-term responses to environmental conditions ('sensing'), to identify the point(s) at which the plant's development leads to the unwanted phenotype (excessive June Drop or excessive vegetative bud development). Blueberry and Cherry are key crops with great potential for UK production but which currently supply only 7% and 5% respectively of the market with UK fruit. Current expansion particularly in cherry is presently impeded by this unpredictable developmental phenotype, 'June Drop', which can lead to fruit losses of 80%. In blueberry, yield varies as much as 50% across seasons. Project outputs will allow, for the first time, the ability to carry out in-field environmental monitoring and crop phenotyping to understand environmental factors controlling crop production and develop bespoke crop management systems that will mitigate the effect of environmental variation and ensure future crop yield stabilisation and for cherry to encourage new plantations to reduce imports. The outputs would also have application to a wide range of other crops where other phenotypic disorders can be detected and methods developed for mitigation and also for plant breeding where varieties can be selected based on imaging signals of plant responses to environmental conditions.

There is a need to develop a greater understanding of factors affecting the speed and proficiency of blueberry plant establishment and thereafter maintenance of yield. Bushes do not become fully productive until they are between five and seven years old requiring a significant financial layout from growers before any expected return to profit. A significant knowledge gap exists regarding the inter- relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plant establishment of naturally occurring and commercially grown Vaccinium species. This project aims to identify species- specific fungal communities to assess their ability to colonise a range of highbush blueberry cultivars and their affect on establishment and plant productivity. This project is the first step in developing a commercial product based on symbiotic fungal isolates for the propagation industry and growers, which would enhance establishment and growth of blueberry plants.

Flavour is a complex trait under large environmental and seasonal effects which already poses a challenge to breeders and will be more problematic with extreme weather events and climate changes. Conventional breeding and selection techniques are slow and hindered by seasonal and environmental variation with QTL mapping also varying with the environment. Recent omics tools have been developed (genome scaffolds, gene expression & metaboloics data, correlation networks) that will allow us to investigate and validate links between berry flavour and its controlling factors (metabolites, genes, environment) to develop a useful model. This feasibility study aims to improve raspberry flavour by utilising omics data alongside historic genotype, phenotype, met & QTL data with novel flavour profiling research to develop new breeding models.

Access to a healthy nutritious meal is not available to all members of society. Since 2009 across the UK there has been a staggering increase of > 4500% in the use of food banks (Trussell Trust, 2017). In England, 26% of the population were defined as inactive with obesity prevalence at 27% (NHS England, 2017) mostly driven by disadvantaged sectors of society. Furthermore, c. 45% of adults in England ate fewer than 3 portions of fruit and vegetables daily. In areas of Scotland this figure is worse. Using Dundee as a city model, early stage discussions have occurred with a range of stakeholders - medics, academics, the City Council, community champions and social enterprises to develop a participatory city scale project of growing soft fruit (raspberry & blueberry) for the provision of healthy nutritious food that leads to physical activity; additionally with the potential to increase green space known to have a positive impact on mental health. To shape project development prior to seeking funding we require key early stage user data to understand the needs of citizens from across different societal sectors to ensure that it has focussed and relevant deliverables. Furthermore, we will explore and begin to define new commercial models as a potential business for this concept.

In the UK, tuber greening is directly linked to 116,000 tonnes of household potato waste each year with an associated estimated loss of £60m p.a. to UK retailers. In field losses due to tuber greening also cost the industry £37m p.a. Greening is a significantly negative factor in consumer purchases where a 1% increase in sales is worth £3m p.a. to producers. This project brings together partners that span the food chain from production, through packaging, to major supermarkets who will work with academic researchers to develop solutions to reduce tuber greening. Photobiological experiments will identify the conditions and target genes for light-induced tuber greening informing the design of prototype packaging film to reduce greening during storage and in store. Recently developed potato genetic approaches will be used to identify markers for genes associated with reduced greening providing the foundation of a longer term strategy to produce new non-greening potato varieties.

Leaf scald, caused by the fungal pathogen Rhynchosporium commune is one of the most damaging diseases of UK barley. Current control strategies rely heavily on fungicides, but the most effective and sustainable way to protect crops is to develop new cultivars that incorporate and express effective built-in resistance. In order to do this, we need to, simultaneously introduce multiple, complementary resistance genes into a single line. This is extremely hard to do if traditional selection methods are used. This project will translate cutting edge advances in barley genetics to deliver innovative breeding methods along with DNA markers that are needed to achieve this objective. These resources and knowledge will be used by the commercial partner (KWS UK Ltd) to produce the next generation of highly resistant barley varieties that will protect yield and quality for growers and end users of barley grain.

Providing sufficient food to feed an increasing global population is challenging given limited resources. Soil is a key component of food production providing nutrition and organic matter. However, modern methods of crop production have resulted in degraded soil leading to reduced yields. This contributes to the so-called yield gap, the difference between yield in optimal conditions to that actually achieved. This project focusses on developing a test for soil quality that uses measures of soil biology, chemistry and physics. We profile soil nematode community DNA, similar to genetic fingerprinting, to inform the status of soil quality. Whereas soil chemical and physical measures are snapshot measures in time e.g. hours, nematode data is a reflection of weeks/months. The consortium partners will develop a tool for farmers to be used in a precision agriculture framework to identify fields in need of soil quality improvement.

Yield instability negatively impacts UK soft fruit growers, preventing accurate profit prediction and maximisation, causing volatility of UK supply. The problem is now well recognised within industry, though the causes of significant season to season yield variation are unknown. This proposal aims to identify the physiological and biochemical processes underlying yield limitations, thereby identifying causes of the yield volatility phenotype. An examination of the impact of growing environment and management practices on yield will be undertaken to allow development of predictive yield maps & models that provide frameworks for yield optimisation in the short to medium term. This knowledge of availabletools to assist management will be transferred to growers and also used to develop molecular markers for yield stability allowing long-term solutions to the problem, thereby future proofing the UK soft fruit industry, particularly blueberry crops with application to other fruit crops. aspbetraspberrygrowing industry.

There has been increased demand for blueberries in recent years fuelled in part because of their many recognised health benefits. Development of new blueberry cultivars with high fruit and nutritional quality combined with early and late ripening and appropriate climatic adaptation is needed. With the availability of more genomic resources, marker-assisted breeding could be used in cultivar development to more efficiently combine traits for fruit and nutritional quality specific to UK climatic adaptation. This project would therefore develop pre-breeding populations and a high resolution GbS linkage map to allow the UK to develop adapted blueberry cultivars efficiently, cost effectively and in a shorter time frame than would be feasible by traditional breeding means. This would allow the UK to produce more home grown fruit for consumption to increase from the 5% UK fruit currently available.

In the Northern Hemisphere with damper conditions, Phytophthora root rot is causing a rapid decline in raspberry plantations grown in soil and also greatly decreasing the life span of production of raspberries grown in substrate with negative environmental consequenses. Plant based resistance is the only way forward and limited material exists that consistently withstands infection with little/no symptom production. The development of gene based techniques offers an opportunity to identify genes that have a significant role in this plant-pathogen interaction to determine the mechanisms of resistance and develop novel strategies of protection including breeding. How both resistant and susceptible varieties respond at the level of gene expression and how the pathogen responds to the differing phenotypes will identify gene markers and allow strategies for control to be developed.

Potato late blight is one of the world's most destructive crop diseases, with £3.5Bn annual losses globally in an industry suffering stagnant yields for the last decade. This project will develop a rapid acoustic biosensor device for in-field identification of air-borne sporangia of Phytophthora Infestans (causal agent of late blight), to meet the compelling need for improved disease management & control. Soil Essentials (SE), a precision-farming SME, together with University of Cambridge (UC), the James Hutton Institute (JHI), Mylnefield Research Services (MRS) & Syngenta (SG), will develop an integrated diagnostic tool for early pathogen detection, by coupling low-cost, antibody-coated acoustic sensing consumables with a proven spore-trap. The proposed innovation, enabled only by the interdisciplinary convergence of state-of-the art acousto-electronics, smart materials, biochemistry, late blight epidemiology, advanced ICT & precision agriculture, will enable optimised disease control, reducing potato crop waste & fungicide costs, improving marketable yield & quality. As a platform technology, it can be easily adapted to detect other crop & livestock pathogens for wider agricultural impact.

The withdrawal of numerous pesticides under Directive 91/414/EEC and subsequent amendments is central to promoting low pesticide-input farming in EU Member States. Furthermore, EU-wide standards for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) are being developed that will become mandatory from 2014 relying on adoption of alternative methods to control pests and diseases. The UK potato industry is particularly vulnerable to a reduction of pesticide use with a likely loss of production across market sectors valued at > £520M. Thus new and novel methods of disease management need to be developed and integrated into IPM strategies. In this project, we wish to explore whether using cutting edge unmanned aerial vehicle optical platforms it is possible to identify a number of diseases in potato before visual symptoms occur in the field. If successful, this will allow accurate mapping of disease in the field thus allowing targeted application of pesticide or equivalent to manage disease at an early stage. Consequently, this will yield a more efficient production process with fewer inputs resulting in significant environmental benefits and a reduction in production wastage due to disease pressure.

The potato industry has witnessed a 10-year long yield stagnation; coupled with increasingly stringent demands on potato quality, there is a compelling need for farmers to increase marketable yield. This project aims to develop an innovative spatial crop model & integrated decision support system for improved variable rate seed planting, fertiliser use & irrigation scheduling to increase productivity of the potato value chain. Converging the multi-disciplinary expertise of Soil Essentials (SE), Newcastle University (NU), Mylnefield Research Services (MRS), Grimme (GR), & McCain (MC), we will build upon the MAPP point model (Management Advisory Package for Potatoes) by taking a holistic approach & considering the spatial variability of tuber size distribution to inform a new & improved adaptive spatial meta-model. The resulting spatial decision support system is cross-sectorial & has the potential to transform in-field decision-making, not just for potato farming but also for other root & arable crops.

Arraying of chemical groups and functional peptides on the surface of engineered, safe (non-infectious) virus-like nanoparticles (VNPs), permits the formation of biomimetic multifunctional and highly reactive nanoscale structures. This project seeks to develop the next generation functional 3D nanomaterials we via the incorporation of such multifunctional VNPs into a low cost nanocellulose matrix which has excellent mechanical characteristics, thus allowing production of innovative functional and catalytic nanoreactors, coatings, filters and other devices

The maintenance of global food security, mediated by sustainable intensification of agriculture, is a recognised global issue and the effective management of plant disease is critical to productive cropping of agricultural land. Potato is the third most important food crop globally, with late blight control being a major challenge estimated to cost £3.5billion in losses per annum. In the UK, disease control alone costs £55M per annum on average to the industry. This project seeks to demonstrate a new prototype device that will sample airborne spores of P. infestans (the cause of late blight) and Alternaria species (the cause of early blight) in the field, automatically process the sample, quantify DNA by fluorescence and relay results by mobile phone text message. The aim is to improve current weather-based disease risk models and predictions for late blight, resulting in enhanced decision making ability for growers with respect to fungicide choice and application and therefore more efficient resource use.

This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic ‘tools’ to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export.

New crop varieties that can tolerate abiotic/biotic stresses are essential for maintaining crop productivity in current and future growing environments. Breeding stress-tolerant crop varieties, however, is limited by the precision and throughput of plant phenotyping. This project will develop and apply a novel tractor-mounted platform for precise and high throughput field phenotyping of plant stress responses of soft fruit crops using IRT and hyperspectral imaging. It is proposed also to assess the value of canopy imaging as an indirect indicator of abiotic and biotic root stresses. Soft fruit crops such as raspberry can experience multiple stresses in field conditions, including poor soil conditions, variable water availability, and attack by root rot pathogens and root-feeding vine weevil larvae. Phenotyping data will be linked to genetic markers to facilitate breeding of productive, stress-resistant soft fruit varieties. This novel high-throughput phenotyping platform will accelerate the development and release of productive high quality soft fruit varieties that perform well in sustainable reduced input cropping and is expected to be valuable for routine monitoring of crops and stress diagnosis.

Modern crop breeding aims to incorporate useful properties (traits) from related wild plants into the varieties that consumers are more familiar with. This project aims to develop a set of biological tools that will make it an easier, cheaper and faster procedure to identify the genes in the wild plants that are responsible for producing these desired traits. The tools will be based on a common plant virus, Tobacco rattle virus (TRV), that has already been shown to be adaptable for this purpose. The project will construct improved versions of the TRV-based tools, and will then test these new tools in a range of vegetable crop plants (including pepper and tomato). Beneficial plant genes identified using these tools will be selected for incorporation into the crop improvement programmes of Enza Zaden.

Currently there is great scope for increasing soft fruit production in the UK to meet demand from consumers and processors. Soft fruit is a success story for the UK being a valuable and sustainable horticulture industry with the associated broader health benefits derived from consumption. Currently however no high quality varieties with resistance to pests and diseases are available. Breeding soft fruit crops is time consuming and can be 15 years in variety development. Breeding tools in the form of markers have recently been developed on a case by case basis and individually introduced into breeding programmes. What is now required are markers for multiple complex traits to be identified and utilised in the development of a high throughput format that would lead to significant advances in variety development in terms of time and accuracy in selection meeting stakeholder requirements.

Stable isotope ratio analysis is recognized as a standard technique in the identification of adulterated foodstuffs. The procedure looks at the ratio of naturally occuring none radioactive heavy and light isotopes which go to make up a food product. The most common isotopes used in this process are 13C/12C and 18O/16O. Changes in the ratio’s between between the light and heavy isotopes can indicate both the origin of a food stuff and some of the process through which the food stuff has been exposed. A good example is honey. Sugars within a natural honey have a different 13C/12C ratio to honey that has been adulterated by the addition of exogenous sugar. This is a common form of adulateration that can be simply identified using stable isotope analysis. Currently this analysis can only be achieved using high precision high value laboratory based instrumentation. This requires users to send samples of food stuffs to specialist laboratories located remotley from the site of production. This process is both time consuming, costly and laborious, limiting the use and application of this powerful tool in the food industry. With the development of laser based isotope systems, the instrumentation has become simpler and more reliable, even enabling the analysis of basic compounds, such as water, in a field situation. However current laser technology suffers from one significant limitation, the inability to perform chromatographic separation. This is a process that allows analytical instrumentation to separate out the components of complex mixtures, permitting their individual elements to be investigated. For instance, it may be necessary to look at the vanilla flavouring within a product to ensure it has come from a vanilla plant and not a synthetic analogue. This requires the vanilla compound to be separated from the rest of the food product, a process typically achieved by chromatography. The STFC (Space Science & Technology Department) has developed and patented a laser isotope ratiometer with a number of key features which distinguish it from other laser isotope instruments including the ability to carry out isotope analysis over short time periods, typically in the millisecond range. This patented system will for the first time, allow laser systems to perform isotope analysis on chromatographically separated compounds.To demonstrate this ability and make the system field deployable, a robust and portable chromatographic interface sample inlet will be developed and integrated with the laser by Protium MS. The aim of this project is to develop a prototype laser based GC Isotope system which will allow on-site detection and quantification of food adulteration. The objectives of this project are to develop a chromatographic front end to integrate with the mechanics and electronics of the current patented laser system and to develop a laser isotope system.

Free Living Nematodes (FLN) are emerging as a major problem for UK potato growers, exacerbated in the short term by removal of approved nematicides and in the long-term by expected population increases due to climate change. FLN cause direct damage by feeding on potato roots reducing yields and quality, and indirectly by transmitting Tobacco Rattle Virus (TRV). Relatively low levels of TRV infections can render entire crops unsaleable, both for the fresh and the processing industries. Current knowledge estimates the total loss to the UK potato industry to be £13m p.a. FLN comprise a range of different taxonomic groups that are difficult to distinguish visually but vary significantly in terms of their distribution, pathogenicity and virus transmission frequencies, and have been to date under-studied in the UK. The problem is further compounded by beneficial and pathogenic FLN species co-existing, and thus accurate discrimination is essential. This project brings together a consortium of companies with a grower base of over 500 growers invloved in ware potato production seed both for use in the UK and export. In addition, a number of companies with potential methods for controlling FLN populations are included as partners. For the first time, a molecular diagnostic capable of distinguishing between the three main groups of FLN of interest will be developed, validated and deployed. This will be used to assess direct FLN feeding damage on a selection of commercial potato varieties as well as study effects on tuber quality and transmission of virus. In parallel, molecular markers will be developed to facilitate the breeding of new potato varieties with resistance to TRV.

Free Living Nematodes (FLN) are emerging as a major problem for UK potato growers, exacerbated in the short term by removal of approved nematicides and in the long-term by expected population increases due to climate change. FLN cause direct damage by feeding on potato roots reducing yields and quality, and indirectly by transmitting Tobacco Rattle Virus (TRV). Relatively low levels of TRV infections can render entire crops unsaleable, both for the fresh and the processing industries. Current knowledge estimates the total loss to the UK potato industry to be >£13m p.a. FLN comprise a range of different taxonomic groups that are difficult to distinguish visually but vary significantly in terms of their distribution, pathogenicity and virus transmission frequencies, and have been to date under-studied in the UK. The problem is further compounded by beneficial and pathogenic FLN species co-existing, and thus accurate discrimination is essential. This project brings together a consortium of companies with a grower base of over 500 growers invloved in ware potato production seed both for use in the UK and export. In addition, a number of companies with potential methods for controlling FLN populations are included as partners. For the first time, a molecular diagnostic capable of distinguishing between the three main groups of FLN of interest will be developed, validated and deployed. This will be used to assess direct FLN feeding damage on a selection of commercial potato varieties as well as study effects on tuber quality and transmission of virus. In parallel, molecular markers will be developed to facilitate the breeding of new potato varieties with resistance to TRV.

This project aims to understand and utilise plant physical mechanisms for resistance to pest and diseases in soft fruit/bush crops, to overcome changes in EU Directive 91/414/EEC and WFD and satisfy consumer demand for residue free, high quality fruit grown in the UK. Fresh fruit accounts for a market of £4 billion in the UK, and soft fruit/berries account for 17% of this. UK raspberries have a value of £94 million, strawberries £196 million, blackcurrants £12 million and blueberry, currently a minor player has a value of £95 million. Demand for UK grown fruit is increasing dramatically, however few high quality soft fruit varieties are available with adequate pest and disease resistance due to the focus on fruit quality by the major commercial fruit breeding companies. For production to be sustainable, a greater understanding of plant-derived resistances to pests and diseases is required that can be deployed in IPDM programmes to reduce reliance on chemicals but still produce high quality fruit. Physical resistance traits are particularly promising for crop protection because they tend to be more robust against pest and disease adaptation, and unlike chemically-based resistance traits, are less likely to adversely affect fruit quality. This work aims to look at root architecture and morphology, leaf trichomes, cane/stem architecture and plant habit to determine how variation in these physical traits contributes to resistance against major soft fruit pest and diseases. Using the raspberry model, key genes in chromosomal regions controlling variation in these traits can be selected across different fruits and used to greatly reduce the time varieties are in development.

Despite fungicide applications valued at over £25M, 'Rhynchosporium' continues to be the most problematic and economically damaging disease of barley leading to annual yield losses of ~£7M. Research has shown the importance of extensive growth of this pathogen before symptoms are visible, even on resistant cultivars, and this has changed our understanding of its epidemiology. Previously we based our understanding of resistance on visible symptoms only - this new knowledge explains some of the difficulties in managing the disease. Understanding the impact of pre-symptomatic colonisation on yield and its impact on disease management is pivotal and our breeding and crop protection strategies need to change to exploit this new knowledge. We will identify, characterise and combine sources of barley resistance to improve durability and use knowledge of the mode of action of different defence mechanisms to improve crop protection strategies to increase the effectiveness of currently available fungicides. Using host plant gene markers together with microscopy methods using fluorescently-tagged pathogen isolates we will characterise sources of resistance, identify candidate genomic locations and obtain flanking diagnostic molecular markers. This knowledge will be used to develop new varieties and to validate optimal disease management programmes against this important pathogen.