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Download PDF Collaborative research has long been the backbone of a Defra-funded breeding programme that has responded to the challenges facing oilseed rape growers. CPM explores the programme’s current focus. Without the GINs there’s some cutting-edge genetic research that simply wouldn’t be carried out in the UK. By Tom Allen-Stevens Few crops will take you on the emotional rollercoaster in quite the same way as oilseed rape. There’s the dazzling display of a crop in full flower, followed by the thick mat of pods with its promise of harvest booty. And there’s the struggling seedlings mercilessly savaged by cabbage stem flea beetle as they sit in submissive surrender in a dry September soil. Could something be done with the genetics to smoothen out the ride? Hants-based Crop Management Partners agronomist Nick Wall vents the frustration felt by many over the unreliability of oilseed rape. This is one of the key aims of the Oilseed Rape Genetic Improvement Network (OREGIN). Set up in 2003 as one of four Defra-funded genetic networks, it brings together researchers and breeders in a collaborative approach to pre-breeding work and resources. Priority plant characteristics being investigated include tolerance to insects, viruses and diseases, including phoma stem…
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