East Malling Research signed up to support European cherry production
The main focus of COST is enabling scientific collaboration and networking. Thanks to this Action, cherry researchers at EMR and across Europe will combine their expertise on plant genetics, physiology as well as pest and disease management to promote sustainable cherry production in the EU.
In the area of genetics, it will aid European breeding programmes to take up new technologies and help establish coordinated marker-assisted selection strategies that will allow breeders to identify desirable traits within plants at the seedling stage optimising the development of new cultivars.
Feli Fernández, EMR Cherry Breeder and Management Committee Representative for the UK in this initiative, said: “Demand for cherries is continuously increasing as a tasty element in a healthy diet and UK growers are modernising production to meet this demand adopting new varieties, dwarfing rootstocks and covers.
“We are very excited about being involved in the COST action which will avoid duplication of research effort and ultimately benefit the consumer and producer through the availability of better cherries.”
Peter Gregory, Chief Executive of EMR, said: “The COST programme, like much of the work at East Malling, is placing emphasis on helping growers meet consumer demand, whilst at the same time promoting sustainable agriculture and adapting to climate change.
“By promoting collaboration between researchers and improving the coordination of European cherry research, UK growers should expect new varietal advances and the development of novel production techniques that will further underpin competitive UK production.”
The COST programme is part of the EU’s European Science Foundation and its focus on food and agriculture production. It will bring together scientists involved in cherry breeding as well as experts in genetics, genomics, agronomy, physiology, phytopathology, entomology, microbiology, post-harvest technology, and socio-economics.
The work will also aid the exchange of data between research teams, the adoption of common experimental protocols, the implementation of predictive models in the fields of epidemiology and tree phenology.
For more information:
Andrew Metcalf
Maxim
Tel: 0044 1892 513033
Email: Andrew@maxim-pr.co.uk