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New Crop-Growing Gene To Cope With Climate Change

biological sciences research counci

Wow! That’s great, though this may encourage the polluters to have enough reasons to keep polluting have uncovered A gene that could help to develop new varieties of crop that will be able to cope with the changing world climate has been uncovered by scientists at the UK’s leading plant science centre.

The gene in barley that controls how the plant responds to seasonal changes in the length of the day. It has been identified by researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. This is the key to understand how plants have adapted their flowering behavior to different environments.

Dr David Laurie, the research leader at the John Innes Centre, said, “Growing crops will become more difficult as the global climate changes. The varieties of crops grown in the UK are suited to the soil, seasons and traditional cool, wet summers. Later flowering in barley means it has a longer growing period to amass yield. If British summers get hotter and drier we will need types of wheat, barley and other crops that flower earlier, like Mediterranean varieties, to beat summer droughts. However, new varieties will need to be adapted in all other ways to UK conditions. “

Via: Science Daily

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