Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global, immediate and ongoing concern to human health. AMR occurs when microbes become resistant to clinical or veterinary drugs that are used to treat disease, and this has major consequences on how microbial diseases are managed and therefore how antimicrobial compounds are used.
Sustainability and food security are two terms that are commonly used in relation to the UK agricultural sector. In a changing climate, there is a need to reduce the impact of endemic diseases on livestock health, welfare and productivity. The brown stomach worm, Teladorsagia circumcincta, is the most prevalent livestock roundworm parasite in the UK and has a major economic impact on the sheep industry.
Plant pathogens trigger changes in host plants that allow them to cause disease. Understanding which molecules pathogens use to do this (termed effectors), how they allow infection to take place, and how they are detected by plants has important implications for our understanding of plant disease.
The Centre for Sustainable Cropping (CSC) is a long-term experimental platform established to integrate all aspects of sustainability research on arable ecosystems. The CSC allows us to study crop management at a more integrated and system wide level and compare this to conventional crop husbandry practices. We have been using the CSC platform to study the impact of sustainable soil management practices on soil-borne pathogens. Here, we focus on the detection, quantification and impact of Rhizotonia solani: specifically, the sub-group known as R. solani AG3.
Improving the management of Scotland’s natural assets at a landscape-level for ecological, economic, and social outcomes is a priority for the Scottish Government and its partners. Adaptive management is one way to achieve this objective and is about connecting the ‘doing’ of natural resource management with ‘learning’ about the context of the management situation, and the responses and effects of the management actions. We provide a series of lessons learned from five studies that cover a range of landscape-level management situations, including upland and lowland areas.
Potato is the number one wasted household food by weight, estimated at over 700,000 tonnes and with a cost of £555M per annum in the UK. Nearly half of the fresh potatoes bought by UK householders are thrown away. Working with collaborators from industry and academia we have investigated ways to improve potato storage to minimise waste.
The concept for this project began when her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, attended a special event held on Monday 21st October 2019 at Pentlands Science Park, Midlothian, to celebrate Moredun’s commitment to the contribution of livestock to food production, biodiversity and the environment. Discussions included working in collaboration with partner organisations to help promote the wider benefits of livestock in sustainable food production, promoting biodiversity and minimising any impact on the environment.
Electronic identification (EID) tags have been compulsory in UK sheep flocks since 2010, and a decade after their introduction, can still be a controversial topic. But these tags, rather than just identifying individual animals, also offer a huge opportunity to improve efficiency and productivity on-farm; allowing a greater understanding of production rates on the farm, and perhaps even in particular fields, providing an early warning of potential problems.