Norwich Research Park is a recognised world leader in precision breeding, with many of our researchers, scientists and businesses using techniques such as gene editing to improve the performance of important crops, be that improved resilience to disease, increased tolerance to higher temperatures or improving yields. These techniques achieve what conventional crop breeding approaches can do in a fraction of the time which makes them very valuable tools in the efforts being made to improve food security and nutrition on a global scale.
In recognition of the wealth of expertise in precision breeding that exists at Norwich Research Park, S&P Global Energy RedThread channel visited the campus last month to make a mini documentary about what precision breeding is, the benefits it can deliver and to find out how two businesses are currently successfully employing it to improve plant health and shelf-life.
Rory Hornby, COO and co-founder of ALORA explained how his team are using gene editing techniques to improve rice’s tolerance to heat so that it can be grown in locations at higher temperatures caused by climate change. Daniel Ponndorf of Tropic spoke about how they are using gene editing to improve the shelf-life and disease resistance of banana plants.
