"There is so much innovation occurring on new entrant farms – we hope that raising their profile this way will inspire others to join the sector and innovate." National Farmers Union presidents from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have agreed to judge a new award for 'New Entrant Farm Business of the Year'. Minette Batters (NFU), Andrew McCornick (NFUS), Glyn Roberts (FUW), John Davies (NFU Cymru) and Ivor Ferguson (UFU) will meet to decide the winner in January 2019. Related content Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Lee-Ann Sutherland Annie McKee Sharon Flanigan More
"Anyone who grows potatoes, be it in large scale on a field, or in their back gardens - can learn to better understand potato pests and diseases, their cause and how to prevent them" The James Hutton Institute's Information and Computational Sciences group have announced a web version of Buntata, the free mobile application launched last year to help potato growers identify plant pests and diseases in the field. Following on from the success of the mobile app, which has quickly become the Institute's most popular application on the Android platform, the ICS team have taken it a step further
Babies that aren't even born yet could help Aberdeen scientists to improve the health of future generations.
"These genes, if introgressed into new cultivars via breeding or alternative routes, could significantly reduce the dependency on pesticides for crop production An improved technique for capturing DNA in crops may give plant breeders huge advantages when it comes to developing varieties that are more resilient to pests and diseases. The technique, known as diagnostic Resistance gene enrichment Sequencing (dRenSeq), enables the high-confidence identification and complete sequence validation of functional resistance genes. Related content Cell and Molecular Sciences Ingo Hein More information
Women working in Scottish agriculture will be “making their voices heard” at this year’s autumn conference.