Plant Impact plc, (AiM: PIM), a leader in research and development in crop enhancement to create products that growers can rely on to improve the yield and quality of their crops, announces a new wheat-focussed research collaboration alongside Rothamsted Research, The University of Nottingham and Lancaster University.

Combining efforts to deal with a worldwide problem

Wheat yields across the world are adversely affected by high temperatures and current estimates suggest that for wheat, barley and maize, the combined annual losses caused by recent global warming are about $5 billion annually*.  It is understood that heat stress experienced by wheat crops around the time of flowering can cause a particularly significant reduction in those yields.

With the support of Innovate UK, scientists from Plant Impact, Rothamsted Research, the University of Nottingham and Lancaster University will work together to investigate heat stress in wheat and the underlying plant physiology involved.  This knowledge will aid the development of new chemical crop enhancement technologies to help plants thrive in hotter environments while maintaining their crop quality and yield.

Alongside scientists from the Plant Impact R&D team, academics from the world’s oldest and leading agricultural research institute, Rothamsted Research, will play a central role in the collaborations. The project will take the form of two distinct workstreams, a three-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Lancaster University and a DTP iCase PhD studentship with the University of Nottingham. 

Steve Adams, R&D Director, Plant Impact, commented:

“This prestigious academic partnership signals the start of a key wheat R&D programme for Plant Impact.  Our experience of successful partnerships and developing effective crop enhancement products that help plants mitigate the effects of abiotic stress has lead us to investigate how else we can extend understanding of key world crops.  Heat stress poses a real and growing risk to farmers across the world relying on consistent wheat yields to maintain the profitability of their farms and to contribute to a steady flow of this key food crop for our growing population."

Dr Steven Thomas, Rothamsted Research, said:

“Global climate change is already impacting the yield of key world cereal crops. This important collaboration will help us to extend our understanding of how wheat is affected by heat stress as we strive to find ways to increase crop yields in the face of rising temperatures around the world.

Prof. Ian Dodd, Lancaster University commented:

"At Lancaster, we have been working with Plant Impact on a range of projects for about 10 years now. Our recent joint focus on improving crop yields in staple crops such as wheat offers new possibilities to improve global food security, and provides a good example of industry-academia collaboration that will encourage more graduates into this important area."

Prof. Zoe A. Wilson, Chair in Developmental Plant Biology, University of Nottingham said:

“Developing crops that are resilient to high temperature stress is a major challenge for maintaining crop yields against the backdrop of increasing global temperatures. This collaboration provides exciting opportunities to help address this key issue for global food security.”

* Source: Lobell DB, Field CB (2007) Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming. Environ Res Lett 2:014002