30 – Dr Brande Wulff (Science Series) – Speed Cloning

In this week's feature producer Claire went down to the John Innes Centre to meet up with Brande Wulff to hear about his latest discovery - speed cloning. This new technique is about recruiting resistance genes from wild relatives of crops to make modern crops more resistant to disease and less reliant on pesticides. Claire and Brande manage to find an analogy that involves a donkey's whiskers and a race horse that enables Claire to get her head round this tricky technology that will mean researchers can use laboratory techniques to clone the genes and introduce them into elite varieties of domestic crops to protect them against pathogens and pests such as rusts, powdery mildew and Hessian fly. Brande even gives his take on how Brexit might impact the British wheat supply and how his science might be able to help us.  As Andrew's away, the market report for week commencing 1st April 2019 is presented by Josh and in Farmchat Josh and Ben consider the striking similarities between some of our MPs and famous football managers.   Thanks to our sponsors this week:  Crush Foods - oils, dressing and granola. Local, healthy, delicious. www.crush-foods.com The Dewing Grain Podcast is co-produced by www.eastcoastdesignstudio.co.uk and www.tinshedproductions.co.uk Dewing Grain - Independent grain trader for Norfolk & Suffolk 01263 731550 - www.dewinggrain.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.