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The Genetic Resources Unit, part of ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Crop Centre, is a vital resource for the collection, maintenance and characterisation of many important vegetable crops and their wild relatives. In this article, Dr Charlotte Allender describes the unit, the importance of the seed collections and how advances in technology will contribute to future food sustainability.

A recent BBSRC-sponsored knowledge transfer partnership between ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Crop Centre and Elsoms Seeds has enabled the breeding company to implement genetic marker technology, which could reduce the time to market for new parsnip varieties by up to 5 years.

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On Friday 12 August, BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme visited the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Crop Centre to find out about research to increase vegetable yields, and quality, in the face of increasing pressures on climate change and food security.

 The programme includes:

• Dr Rosemary Collier investigating sources of resistance to lettuce pests.
• Dr Charlotte Allender discussing the use of carrot diversity sets to look for useful traits such as disease resistance and tolerance to drought.
• Dr Graham Teakle examining nitrogen-use efficiency in oil seed rape.

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In an interview with ¹û¶³´«Ã½'s Knowledge Centre, Dr Rosemary Collier and Dr Graham Teakle discuss ways to increase the sustainability of crop production.