Tag: food security

Taking basic research to application: Using light quality to improve herb growth

Posted on by janet.crompton
Coriander has a distinctive flavour and is popular in dishes such as curry. (Image By Deeptimanta (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Coriander is the UK’s top-selling culinary herb, an industry worth £18 million a year. However, maintaining high standards of product quality is expensive and can lead to lots of plants being rejected before they make it to supermarket shelves. One of the key objectives for the potted herb industry is the production of compact plants with dark green leaves, but the plants that consumers end up with often do not conform with this ideal and can appear leggy and weak.

Plants compete for light by growing taller

Plants go to extraordinary lengths to maximise their light capture for photosynthesis. When plants grow close together however, they compete for resources and one resource that becomes limited in closely spaced plants is light due to mutual shading.

Shade has a negative impact on a plant’s health as it limits the light that a plant can use for photosynthesis. But unlike animals, which can move to new areas once space, water or food becomes limited, plants are immotile and have evolved unique strategies to compete for and maximise light capture. Chief among these is the shade avoidance syndrome. Incredibly, plants anticipate that they are at risk of being shaded even before they actually are shaded through the detection of local light quality – the depletion of red and blue light and the relative enrichment of longer wavelengths of light due to the absorption and reflection properties of vegetation. The shade avoidance syndrome is triggered in response to this change in light quality and the most dramatic changes in plant form involve the elongation of stems and the raising of leaves so as to move light capturing organs into sunlight.

Elongation does have drawbacks however – resources are diverted away from seed, chlorophyll and leaf production; there is also an increased risk of lodging (where plants fall over due to over-elongation making them unable to support their organs), which puts a limit on how densely we can plant crops before they over-compete with each other and it impacts yields.

UV-B suppresses elongation

On the other hand, plants have mechanisms in place to prevent over-elongation. These are often related to light-quality as well and one such mechanism is the sensing of UV-B wavelengths.

Classical Ultra-Violet research on plants has focused on the damaging effects that this shorter wavelength, higher energy light can have on DNA, or cell structure through production of reactive oxygen species. These UV-B wavelengths are beyond our visible range, but plants have specific photoreceptors that can detect UV-B and trigger a signaling cascade that will lead to the accumulation of sun screening compounds as well as architectural changes. Indeed, it is now clear that the plant responses to UV-B are not only a reaction to UV-B damage, but also a specific response to the sensing of UV-B (read more on this on the UV4Plants society website).

A finding that emerged from our laboratory in Bristol was that the elongation that plants exhibited in crowded conditions could be suppressed with the addition of UV-B to their light conditions (Hayes et al., 2014). UV-B is a component of direct sunlight, so an interpretation of this adaptation is that plants use UV-B as a signal that they are in direct sunlight and hence no longer need to elongate to escape shade.

Applying our research to the glasshouse

Armed with this new knowledge of plant responses to light, we are collaborating with a major potted herb grower to improve their product quality. A problem with glasshouse grown coriander in the winter months is that they grow long and spindly. Often these herbs are planted densely with around 60 seedlings per pot – conditions that are conducive to shade avoidance. Short days and cloud cover during winter further contribute to over-elongation. To compound this, many materials used in glasshouse construction such as glass or clear acrylic filter out UV-B radiation. Thus, plants growing in these conditions are no longer receiving the UV-B brake on elongation that they would be if they were growing outdoors. If we restore this brake by using artificial UV-B light sources then we could solve this problem. We’ve started trialing UV-B treatments this summer and early results look promising. However, we need to wait until winter to collect our most informative data as in summer, with bright and long days, coriander plants grow far more compact than in winter.

Both pots were planted at the same density, the coriander on the left were grown in normal conditions while the coriander on the right were supplemented with UV-B radiation.

Hayes S, Velanis CN, Jenkins GI, Franklin KA. UV-B detected by the UVR8 photoreceptor antagonises auxin signalling and plant shade avoidance. Proc Natl Acad U.S.A. 2014. 111(32):11894-9

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Donald Fraser who is a PhD student in the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Bristol, he is studying plant responses to light and the circadian clock.

Breeding cassava for the next generation

Posted on by janet.crompton

Last week I helped to harvest and score cassava tubers a breeding trial at the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI). The trial is part of the NEXTGEN Cassava project which applies genetic techniques to conventional breeding and aims to produce new varieties with Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) and Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) resistance.

Why cassava and what’s the CBSD problem?

Approximately 300 million people rely on cassava as a staple food crop in Africa. It is resilient to seasonal drought, can be grown on poor soils and harvested when needed. However cassava production is seriously threatened by CBSD, which can reduce the quality of tubers by 100% and is currently threatening the food security of millions of people.

Cassava brown streak symptoms on tubers

Crossing cassava from around the world

Cassava varieties show a huge variation in traits including disease resistance. The NEXTGEN Cassava project has crossed 100 parent plants from Latin America with high quality African plants to produce new improved varieties, with higher levels of CBSD and CMD resistance. Crossing involves rubbing the pollen from one parent variety on to the female flower part (pistil) of the second parent variety to produce seeds.

Cassava flowers used to cross different varieties

 

Cutting back on time

The process is not easy. The complex heritability of traits in cassava means that many plants have to be screened to identify plants with the best traits. To cut down on this time, researchers from Cornell University sequenced the DNA from 2,100 seedlings and selected plants containing sequences linked to desirable traits.

Screening for resistance

These plants were transferred to field site in Namulonge, where there is a high level of CBSD, making it easier to spot resistant plants. After 12 months the tubers were dug up and cut into sections. Each root was scored for the severity of CBSD. Plants which  show no disease symptoms have now been selected for the next stage of breeding. Eventually varieties will be tested for their performance at sites across Uganda and given to farmers for their feedback.

We harvested and scored tubers for Cassava brown streak symptoms. I then tagged disease free plants for selection!

 

Time to harvest!

 

Alfred Ozimati is managing the breeding  programme

I helped to score and tag plants, it was hard work! I was impressed by the stamina of the workers who harvested from 8 am until 3 pm without a rest. I was struck by the mammoth task of breeding cassava for so many traits and by the programme manager Alfred Ozimati’s determination to get the work done as quickly as possible. Alfred is currently a  PhD student at Cornell University; he kindly offered to answer these questions:

What are the challenges of conventional breeding and how does sequencing help to address these?

Typical conventional breeding cycle of cassava is 8-10 years before parents are selected for crossing. The sequencing information allows a breeder to select parents early at the seedling stage, allowing more crossing cycles over time than conventional cassava breeding. With sequencing, the process of releasing varieties with improved CBSD and CMD resistance should take about 5 years.

What are your long term hopes for the project and the future of cassava breeding?

We hope to use genomic selection routinely, to address any other challenges cassava as a crop of second importance to Uganda will face. And also to take the technology to other East African, cassava breeding programs to faster address their major breeding constraints.

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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Using GM to fight cassava brown streak disease

Posted on by janet.crompton

Last week I helped plant a new confined field trial for genetically modified (GM) cassava in western Uganda. The aim is to find how well the plants resist Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD).

Before planting, the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) held discussions with people from the local government and farmers’ groups. It’s vital to engage the local community so that people are correctly informed and on-board with the project. There were certainly some very strange myths to debunk!

Henry Wagaba (Head of Biosciences at NaCRRI) explained the huge losses caused by CBSD, which spoils tubers and can wipe out entire fields. CBSD is now the most devastating crop disease in Uganda and there are no resistant varieties currently available.

To fight the disease, NaCRRI researchers have developed GM cassava plants, which show high levels of resistance to CBSD at sites in southern and central Uganda. This trial will test how the plants perform in the growing conditions in western Uganda. Work will also be carried out to cross the GM plants wither farmer varieties to improve their growing and taste qualities.

I enjoyed getting stuck in and planting my first GM cassava!

GM crops are a contentious topic in Uganda. The passing of a National Biotechnology and Biosafety law has stalled in Parliament for over three years due to disagreements. Currently GM technology is used for research on banana, cassava, maize, potato, rice and sweet potato. However these are not approved for human consumption.

In nearby countries Kenya and Sudan, GM food products have been approved and many of these food products are imported into Uganda without regulation. It’s hoped the law will be passed soon to enable Ugandan farmers to reap the benefits of GM crops and protect against any potential risks.

Before the trial, I went on a safari in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, where I saw elephants, hippos and even lions!
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Clean cassava to solve brown streak problem?

Posted on by janet.crompton

Since arriving in Uganda, I’ve been learning a lot about the affects of Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), which is devastating cassava production and threatening food security. The disease is spread by the whitefly insect, which picks up the virus from an infected plant and carries it to neighbouring healthy plants.

Cassava plants are grown by planting stem cuttings in the ground, which go on to become new plants. If farmers use cuttings from infected plants, the new plants will also become infected. This is a big problem, as infected cuttings can be transported to new areas, spreading CBSD across large distances.

What can be done?

Tolerance

Huge efforts are being put into a number of different solutions. These include breeding new cassava varieties, which are tolerant to CBSD. This is a very long and challenging process, as cassava plants also need to be resistant to Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and have yield/taste properties which farmers and consumers prefer.

The National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) has recently developed a new variety: NAROCASS1, which is tolerant to CBSD and resistant to CMD. This is now being used in areas where CBSD is particularly common and severe. Unfortunately, even tolerant cassava varieties can contain CBSD viruses and so it’s vital that farmers have access to clean cuttings.

Cassava variety NAROCASS1 with CBSD tolerance and CMD resistance.

Clean seed system (CSS)

The cassava CSS project in Uganda is run by NaCRRI and involves picking the very youngest tip of the cassava plant to produce embryonic tissue, which develops into a new plant. These plants are then checked to see whether the CBSD virus is present before being taken to nurseries where they are carefully multiplied and eventually used for clean planting material for farmers. As you can imagine, this process takes a long time and is much more expensive than taking cuttings from a mature cassava plant. However it means that farmers can benefit from quality assurance that the cuttings they buy are virus free and stand the best chance of remaining healthy.

A clean cassava plantlet produced through tissue culture.

The cassava CSS project has been running as a pilot for three years. It will be very interesting to hear how this project goes, as it’s likely to be a major solution to the CBSD problem.

Reviewing progress

Last week I had helped take minutes for the annual CSS review at NaCRRI, which involved lots of manic typing and concentration! As part of the review I got to visit a field where an entrepreneur is growing clean cassava plants. The plants certainly looked healthy, with no CBSD and CMD symptoms at all. With so much to think about, we still found time to have a cocktail party to let of some steam!

Clean cassava seed entrepreneur David Mpanga explains how he uses record keeping to track of outgoings and income.
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This blog has been written by University of Bristol Cabot Institute member Katie Tomlinson from the School of Biological Sciences.  Katie’s area of research is to generate and exploit an improved understanding of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) to ensure sustainable cassava production in Africa.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Katie’s blog Cassava Virus.

 

Katie Tomlinson

More from this blog series:  

Will global food security be affected by climate change?

Posted on by janet.crompton

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released an important report outlining the evidence for past and future climate change. Unfortunately it confirms our fears; climate change is occurring at an unprecedented rate and humans have been the dominant cause since the 1950s. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) has reached the highest level for the past 800,000 years, which has contributed to the increased temperatures and extreme weather we have already started to see.

As a plant scientist, I’m interested in the complicated effects that increased temperatures, carbon dioxide and changes in rainfall will have on global food security. Professor David Lobell and Dr Sharon Gourdji wrote about some of the possible effects of climate change on crop yield last year, summarised below alongside IPCC data.

Increased CO₂

Plants produce their food in a process called photosynthesis, which uses the energy of the sun to combine CO₂ and water into sugars (food) and oxygen (a rather useful waste product). The IPCC reports that we have already increased atmospheric CO₂ levels by 40% since pre-industrial times, which means it is at the highest concentration for almost a million years. Much of this has accumulated in the atmosphere (terrible for global warming) or been absorbed into the ocean (causing ocean acidification) however it may be good news for plants.

Lobell and Gourdji wrote that higher rates of photosynthesis are likely to increase growth rates and yields of many crop plants. Unfortunately, rapid growth can actually reduce the yields of grain crops like wheat, rice and maize. The plants mature too quickly and do not have enough time to move the carbohydrates that we eat into their grains. 

High temperatures

The IPCC predicts that by the end of the 21st century, temperatures will be 1.5C to 4.5C higher than they were at the start of it. There will be longer and more frequent heat waves and cold weather will become less common.

Extremely high temperatures can directly damage plants, however even a small increase in temperature can impact yields. High temperatures means plants can photosynthesise and grow more quickly, which can either improve or shrink yields depending on the crop species (see above). Lobell and Gourdji noted that milder spring and autumn seasons would extend the growing period for plants into previously frosty times of year allowing new growth periods to be exploited, although heat waves in the summer may be problematic.

 
Image credit: IPCC AR5 executive summary
 

Flooding and droughts

In the future, dry regions will become drier whilst rainy places will get wetter. The IPCC predicts that monsoon areas will expand and increase flooding, but droughts will become longer and more intense in other regions.

In flooded areas, waterlogged soils could prevent planting and damage those crops already established. Drought conditions mean that plants close the pores on the leaves (stomata) to prevent water loss, however this means that carbon dioxide cannot enter the leaves for photosynthesis and growth will stop. This may be partly counteracted by the increased carbon dioxide in the air, allowing plants to take in more CO₂ without fully opening their stomata, reducing further water loss and maintaining growth.

 
Image credit: IPCC AR5 executive summary
 

These factors (temperature, CO₂ levels and water availability) interact to complicate matters further. High carbon dioxide levels may mean plants need fewer stomata, which would reduce the amount of water they lose to the air. On the other hand, higher temperatures and/or increased rainfall may mean that crop diseases spread more quickly and reduce yields.

Overall Lobell and Gourdji state that climate change is unlikely to result in a net decline in global crop yields, although there will likely be regional losses that devastate local communities. They argue that climate change may prevent the increases in crop yields required to support the growing global population however.

The effect of climate change on global crop yields is extremely complex and difficult to predict, however floods, drought and extreme temperatures will mean that its impact on global food security (“when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”) will almost certainly be devastating.

On the basis of the IPCC report and the predicted impact of climate change on all aspects of our planet, not just food security, it is critical that we act quickly to prevent temperature and CO₂ levels rising any further.  

 

This blog is written by Sarah Jose, Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

You can follow Sarah on Twitter @JoseSci
Sarah Jose

Wired 4 Food hacking event a big success

Posted on by janet.crompton

Coders, hackers and designers came together at the Wired for Food 24-hour hackathon at the University of Bristol Campus on 21-22 September 2012 to help transform the way we produce and consume food. The event was organised by Forum for the Future, with support from the Cabot Institute and the Ordnance Survey. It is part of the Forum for the Future’s Wired for Change series, designed to inspire and engage the digital communities in the global problems we face.

The idea of a hackathon is to build networks, spread the word about interesting challenges and help demonstrate what technology can do through simple prototypes. The prototypes are not answers in themselves but rather signs of what is possible. The winning prototypes from Wired for Food are described below.

Joint winner – Best solution to real problem

Solution: Hatchtag (DEMO) – finding local eggs with Twilio and Cart Challenge: How do small scale growers make their produce visible without having to jump through hoops – what is the digital equivalent of the handwritten sign by the gate?
Description: Egg sellers simply text their address to Hatchtag (020-3322-1868). This registers their location on the database and includes them on the desktop and mobile egg map for potential purchasers. The account is entirely managed via their mobile phone – further information about which products are on offer or whether they are sold out can all be managed via SMS. No smartphone, ADSL, laptop and so on is required, just a simple mobile phone that can send text messages.
Buyers can locate the nearest foods to them through a mobile digital eggmap. By visiting HatchTag on their device and clicking the phone icon, HatchTag automatically draws walking directions on a map to their nearest producer.
Implications: One of the key issues with local food is visibility. Hatchtag have created a very simple tool that does not require you to register on a website. It shows what is possible with geo-location technology combined with a simple SMS front end. The potential to build on this is endless – eggs are displayed at the moment, but the same system could just as easily handle a range of other products, and map them accordingly with their own icons.

Joint winner – Best solution to real problem

Get on my land – farmers for the future (DEMO)

Challenge: 50% of farmers are over 60. We are in danger of losing a wealth of knowledge and we need to inspire a new generation of Farmers.
Description: Farmers for the Future is a resource for budding food producers of all kinds. The aim is to provide the tools and information possible to make each of the 8 steps from being interested in food to becoming a fully-fledged farmer. Each time you take a step up you are encouraged to help those in the steps below you. It inspires people to get involved, and connects people to help by providing peer to peer mentoring between the ‘stages’ of transition. It also aims to benefit farmers by providing access to labour in exchange for passing on knowledge and skills.
Implications: A key issue is that an urban lifestyle is rapidly becoming the standard for humans – since 2008, for the first time in history, more of us have been living in cities than in the country. This shift comes with a corresponding drop in the agricultural skills that we ultimately need to support us. Get on my land helps address that by leading people through simple steps from being interested in food, to becoming a fully-fledged farmer. It connects people, encourages collaboration & skills development, makes complex information easily available, and can take some of the stress out of being a farmer by providing the best information on growing to identifying market opportunities.

Winner – Best use of OS Open data

Finding Cleo/The Sourdough Revolution (DEMO & MAP)

Challenge: How can we use Tom Hunt’s Sourdough project to connect people around making better bread, and how can we track where ‘Cleo’ has gone in order to join the revolution?
Description: Tom Hunt wants to create a Sourdough revolution to counter our bad bread culture. He has a sourdough culture called Cleo which he has been passing on to friends and interested breadistas who come to events. Finding Cleo tracks where the sourdough has gone – how far as Cleo travelled, and what does the ‘family tree’ look like. It will show lines of connection radiating out, and it can help you find Cleo for yourself, along with the people who can help you make sourdough bread.
Implications: Food waste is a permanent issue, and the foods most wasted in the UK are fruit, vegetables and bread. Sourdough is not only a longer-lasting bread, but by connecting people and enthusing them with simple and satisfying food skills (baking bread) it drives a deeper engagement and appreciation for food. Plus we can all vouch for the fact that Cleo bread is delicious in its own right – having eaten it as part of the Wired for Food event meals.

Food EQ (DEMO)

Challenge: There is growing evidence that suggests that what you eat has a major impact on your emotional health and happiness
Description: Food EQ is a platform for tracking what you eat, what you spend and how you feel as a result. The aim is to show patterns highlighting how your food contributes to how you feel, and to help you work out how you might improve your diet. Its calendar function allows you to compare your diet, happiness, and spend over various periods of time (a week, a month, a year) in order to clearly reveal patterns that motivate you to make improvements yourself. It doesn’t preach, it doesn’t bully, it just makes your own inner thoughts and feelings clear.
Implications: Technology can simplify complex information. Our feelings are immediate and transitory, so that looking back it is often very difficult to remember (or experience) day-to-day, or meal-to-meal changes in how we felt. A motivation to change or improve often requires us to first experience the need for change – Food EQ does that by playing back how we felt in regards to our food, and so helps people make better food adjustments that improve their lives.

Mapping Local food (DEMO)

Challenge: Local businesses are at the heart of a community – without them, there is nothing for people to coalesce around, nothing to keep them there, and the community dies. But local businesses are also under threat from big business, often supermarket, competition. Supermarket shopping is popular for a number of reasons, not least convenience – you know what you’re going to get there, and you know you can probably get most of what you need on one half-mile walk through the aisles. But in many cases you could probably get most of what you need on a similar walk around your local businesses – if only you knew where they all were. There wasn’t an easy way of knowing this, until now.
Description: By mashing up data from Sustaination and information from organisations like the Bristol Pound a user-friendly map was created that shows where local food businesses are, and so promotes the consumption of local food by making the buying choice easier. For the first time, I discovered which local food businesses were nearby (some I knew of, many I didn’t), and it also shows me that there are many locations nearby, closer than my major supermarket, that can meet all of my food buying needs in a small area.
Implications: It is vital that we support local food businesses and, often, the local produce that they sell. This will help us to maintain vibrant communities, cut down our food-producing & food-buying miles, and reduce our dependence on imports.

To find out more, or get involved, please get in contact with Hugh Knowles or James Taplin.

This blog has been written by Hugh Knowles from Forum of the Future and can be found here.

2050: Sustainable oceans in a changing climate

Posted on by janet.crompton

Which fish species will we be eating in 2050? What will the climate be like, and what will it mean for the productivity of the oceans? And how can we turn fisheries management around so that we harvest sustainably and ensure the livelihoods of fishing communities in the future?

These are three of the questions a diverse group of academics from the Cabot Institute tackled at the inaugural Cabot Writing Day in January. The concept for the event was that invitees from a range of disciplines (in this case marine biologists, lawyers, earth scientists, geographers and NGO representatives) gathered to address a central theme, and in a day produce a position paper:

2050: Sustainable oceans in a changing climate

As you can see we covered a huge amount of ground, gained valuable insights from each other’s disciplines, share personal viewpoints and (deliberately) envisaged a very positive future for fisheries in 2050.

We are now using our discussions to fuel ideas for grant applications, initiate new contact and interaction with industry and policymakers, and potentially develop a TV series.

If you would like help organising a Cabot Writing Day on a subject you think needs attention and which suits the diverse Cabot Institute community, please contact Stephen.Simpson@bristol.ac.uk (Cabot KE Fellow) or Philippa.Bayley@bristol.ac.uk (Cabot Manager) to discuss your ideas…

First 2 months as a Cabot KE Fellow

Posted on by janet.crompton

My name is Steve Simpson and I am a marine biologist in the School of Biological Sciences. My focus for some time has been on how global environmental change influences fish, fisheries and marine ecosystems. At the moment my work in Bristol focuses on the effects of warming on European fisheries and the impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine ecosystems. The first two months of my NERC/Cabot Knowledge Exchange fellowship, which builds on these themes, has presented some fantastic opportunities to explore how my research, and that of all my collaborators in Bristol and beyond, can feed into UK policy and industry.

I was lucky that our study on the effects of warming over the last 30 years on the European fish assemblage came out just as I was starting. This meant I was able to spend a day with the Guardian at Brixham fishing port in Devon talking to trawlermen, wholesalers, fishmongers and restaurateurs about how their catches have been changing. After 3 years of staring at records of over 100 million fish on a computer screen, it was great to hear that their experiences matched up with our analysis. This experience was quickly followed by a week with the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) assimilating all the current evidence on influences of climate change on fisheries. I am now developing ideas for a documentary that looks at the science behind changing fisheries and showcases some of the exciting fish we will be eating in abundance in the future. Get ready for John dory and chips…

The week I started my fellowship I was at a meeting at UNESCO in Paris, making plans for an International Year of Ocean Acoustics and discussing ideas for some global experiments on effects of anthropogenic noise in the marine environment. The seas have become much more noisy in the past few decades, due to shipping, oil/gas extraction, windfarm construction and naval activities, and we have to get it right in terms of managing noise without unnecessarily hampering marine industries. The issue of noise has raised some very interesting questions about the precautionary principle, mitigation vs. compensation, and extrapolating findings from small-scale experiments to population-level predictions. I have spent the past few weeks planning a workshop, to be held in Bristol in March next year, where representatives from academia, industry, policy and management will work together to plan the science needed to ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable future for UK waters.

The first 2 months have been hugely exciting and shown me how valuable the Cabot community is for encouraging thinking outside the box, drawing on experience from other groups (e.g. flood risk management informing our future fisheries predictions), and building strong links with the research-end users (aka the real world!). The NERC KE team are doing a fantastic job of building Knowledge Exchange, making the science they fund really deliver, and with Cabot and the RED team in Bristol we’ll be giving training and advice at a KE workshop in January. Watch this space…

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