Tents for Pollination Control - Innovation to Improve Crop Breeding

“农业实践的创新是我们所知的人类文明的基础。植物育种是农业改良的重点之一；有助于提供更有营养、更抗病和更高产的作物品种，能够抵御不利的气候条件，同时将集约农业造成的生态破坏降至最低。已经研究了许多加速育种进程的技术，包括各种遗传技术(例如，遗传修饰、标记辅助选择或CRISPR/CAS9)。该项目旨在扩大育种人员的能力，在不引入外来花粉污染的情况下扩大新品种的规模，方法是使用特殊的无纺布创造一种先进的风媒(风媒)控制帐篷(PCT)。这种产品将提供一种负担得起的、灵活的和用户友好的替代方法，以取代以前的方法(如综合隧道、作物间隔技术或阉割)。作为世界上第一个专门用于风媒的PCT，需要一种创新的帐篷设计来容纳PBS的新型防花粉材料，这些材料可扩展到各种尺寸，以控制不同作物品种和生长条件下的花粉流动。将部署多隧道和帆布结构设计方面的专业知识，以避免随着帐篷规模的增加而出现的弱点，从而节省时间和资源。一旦开发出来，PCT将在客户中进行适用性测试。在英国，植物育种是2.3亿GB的行业，改良品种的影响要大得多。英国植物育种者协会的一项研究估计，英国生产的谷类产品的生产、加工和消费的ROI为40 GB，而用于育种的每1 GB--例如，可归因于植物育种者的仅小麦增产的毛价值为每年373-4.45亿GB。此外，改良品种可减少氮素流失等环境效益(据估计，50%的杂草使用17%的氮肥，而新种植的黑麦草为100%)。除了让英国农业更快、更充分地感受到改良品种的好处外，该项目还扩大了英国在农业技术创新方面的声誉，并将增加全球出口，这对英国退欧后的经济至关重要。

"Innovation in agricultural practices is the basis of human civilisation as we know it. Plant breeding is one of the keystones of agricultural improvement; helping to provide more nutritious, disease resistant and high yielding crop varieties, capable of withstanding adverse climatic conditions, whilst minimising the ecological damage caused by intensive agriculture. Many technologies have been investigated to speed up the breeding process; including various genetic technologies (e.g. genetic modification, marker assisted selection or CRISPR/Cas9). This project aims to expand the capacity of breeders to scale up new varieties without introducing contamination by foreign pollen, by creating an advanced wind pollination (anemophilous) control tent (PCT) using specialised non-woven fabrics. Such a product will provide an affordable, flexible and user-friendly alternative to previous approaches (such as polytunnels, crop spacing techniques or emasculation). As the world's first dedicated anemophilous PCT, an innovative tent design is required to accommodate PBS' novel pollen proof materials that are scaled to a variety of sizes to control pollen flow for different crop varieties and growing conditions. Expertise in design of polytunnels and canvas structures will be deployed to avoid weaknesses that occur as the size of the tents increases, saving time and resources. Once developed, the PCT will be tested for applicability with customers.Plant breeding in the UK is a £230m industry, with the impact of improved varieties being much greater. A British Society of Plant Breeders study, estimated a ROI of £40 for the production, processing and consumption of UK produced cereal-based products to every £1 spent on breeding -- for instance the gross value of yield increase in wheat alone, attributable to plant breeders is £373-445m p.a. In addition, improved varieties offer environmental benefits such as reduced Nitrogen run-off (estimated 50% weed sward uses 17% of Nitrogen applied vs 100% for newly replanted ryegrass).In addition to allowing the benefits of improved varieties to be felt more rapidly and more fully by UK agriculture, this project also extends the UK's reputation for agricultural technology innovation, and will increase global exports, essential to the post-Brexit economy."