The BiosearchTech Blog

Diversity is the spice of life and is also key to breeding rice that delivers increased yields. Rice is a crucial staple food for about half a billion people in Asia, but it suffers from diseases that reduce yields, destroy harvests and put food security and livelihoods at risk. But there is hope - by tracking DNA markers of natural genetic variants through generations of crosses, breeders can identify better combinations that enrich crop vitality and resilience leading to more reliable and sustainable rice production.

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Wheat is one of the three most important crops for human and livestock feed. With an ever-increasing global population, the pressure is on to increase cereal crop production as a solution to feed the world. It has been estimated that by 2030 demand on cereal production will increase by 50%. This means it is essential that scientists and breeders alike strive to maximise its growing potential.

Satisfying the growing global demand for wheat is thrown into difficulties by the crop's vulnerability to pests and disease. To combat these issues, scientists and wheat breeders are working to develop crops with improved key traits including: Read More

Our world population is growing at a tremendous rate and by 2050, Africa’s population alone is set to hit over 2.5 billion. This puts unprecedented pressure on our food supply chains. Fortunately there are projects such as the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) that are looking to help seed breeders deliver improved crops to the continent.

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Demand for maize is increasing due to an increased number of people transitioning to meat-based diets driving demand for animal feed. Drought has been identified as the number one factor in impacting maize yields in the region. Over 80% of maize grown in tropical Asia is rainfed, leaving the 19 million hectares of maize subject to stress caused by variations in monsoon rains. As such, maize is a good point of reference when thinking about the importance of production of drought-tolerant crops (Zaidi, et al., 2016).

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