CEA Heirloom Optimisation & Pathogen Control for Seeds (CHOPS)

传统农业和有机农业高度依赖于各种农用化学品，以确保大田种植的作物不受病害影响，并满足产量需求。控制环境农业(CEA)已经将种植的作物从田间转移到消费，以及来自露天和土壤的疾病压力。这大大减少了对农用化学品的需求，但仍有一段路要走。在CEA设施中生产种子仍然不经济，因此这些种子都是在外面生产的。其结果是，种子的外壳现在是进入CEA生产的主要疾病来源。当一种疾病在CEA中流行时，它可能是毁灭性的，因为植物茁壮成长的条件与真菌或细菌的条件相同。用农用化学品处理种子以去除这些病原体是可能的，但对于环境和消费者驱动的需求来说，这都是不可取的。我们项目的重点之一是扩大和进一步开发一种非化学种子预处理方法，这种方法只使用空气和电力就可以杀死种子表面的任何真菌或细菌，而不会损害种子中包含的胚胎植物。减轻疾病压力并不是所需的全部。由于许多作物已经被广泛培育和选择用于田间生长，育种者关注的关键特征通常是使植物对疾病具有抵抗力，从而减少农民的作物损失。由于这些特性对CEA不那么重要，我们可以借此机会选择对种植者和消费者具有更好特性的品种，如高产、营养密集的品种。我们将通过进行作物试验以及使用DNA测序技术来实现这一点，以使我们能够准确地确定CEA合适品种的遗传密码中的分子标志。通过研究DNA，我们将能够更容易地将我们在菠菜上的发现转化为其他植物。当这两种方法结合在一起时，可以种植出更有营养、专注于CEA的作物，而不会受到疾病的威胁，也不会使用农用化学品。该项目取得的进展也将使英国经济和消费者受益，因为这些合作伙伴走到了一起，为全球农业行业营销技术和解决方案。

Conventional and organic agriculture are highly dependent on various agro-chemicals to ensure that field grown crops are free from disease and satisfy production volume needs. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has moved growing crops for consumption away from fields and the disease pressures that come from the open air and soils. This has massively reduced the need for agro-chemicals but there is still some way to go.It is still uneconomical to produce seeds in CEA facilities and so these are produced outside. The result is that the outer shell of the seed is now the main source of diseases that enter CEA production. When a disease takes hold in CEA, it can be devastating as the conditions that a plant thrives in, are the same as those a fungus or bacteria will. It is possible to treat seeds with agro-chemicals to remove these pathogens, but that is not desirable for both environmental and consumer driven needs. One of the focuses of our project is to scale up and further develop a non-chemical seed pre-treatment method that uses only air and electricity to kill any fungi or bacteria on the surface of the seed without harming the embryonic plant contained within it.Reducing the disease pressure isn't all that is needed. As many crops have been extensively bred and selected for field growth, the key characteristics that breeders have focused on are generally to make the plant resistant to diseases which reduces crop losses for the farmer. As these characteristics are less important to CEA, we can take this opportunity to select varieties that have better characteristics for the grower and the consumer such as higher yielding, more nutrient dense varieties. We will do this by carrying out crop trials as well as using DNA sequencing techniques to allow us to pinpoint molecular signposts in the genetic code of CEA suitable varieties. By looking at the DNA, we will be able to translate our discoveries in spinach into other plants more easily.When these two approaches are combined, a more nutritious, CEA focused crop can be grown free from threat of disease and use of agro-chemicals.The advances made within the project will also benefit the UK economy as well as the consumer as the partners that have come together also market technology and solutions to the global agricultural industry.