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Syngenta (Switzerland)

Syngenta (Switzerland)

18 Projects, page 1 of 4
  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: BB/T004193/1
    Funder Contribution: 202,397 GBP

    Turnip yellows virus (TuYV) is a damaging pathogen severely reducing yields of oilseed rape (OSR) (3rd most widely grown crop in UK). UK losses are estimated at >15%, costing £69 million/annum. It also significantly reduces the yield (up to 65%) and quality of brassica vegetables (e.g. cabbage and sprouts). In earlier BBSRC-funded research, we identified sources of natural plant resistance to TuYV that were effective against the different strains of TuYV. The aim of the proposed research is to work together with commercial plant breeders from different companies to provide plant lines with our resistances to TuYV and tools (molecular markers) needed for our commercial partners to move the resistances in to commercial OSR and vegetable brassica crop varieties. The breeding of the virus-resistant varieties will increase yields, thereby helping food security and also reduce the amounts of pesticides farmers spray on crops, in attempts to stop the greenfly vectors spreading TuYV

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  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: EP/X015327/1
    Funder Contribution: 595,208 GBP

    The advancement of numerous technologies has become increasingly reliant on the ability to dissipate large quantities of heat from small areas. Current designs in power electronics, supercomputers, lasers, X-ray medical devices, nuclear fusion reactor blankets, spacecraft, and hybrid vehicle electronics, and future improvements, rely on record high heat transfer rates. This rapid increase in heat dissipation rates required by such devices has led to a transition from more traditional fan-cooled heat-sink attachments to liquid cooling techniques. Liquid cooling techniques operating in single-phase, however, have now reached their limit being forced to run at very low inlet temperatures and exceedingly high mass flow rates, resulting in unacceptably high pressure drops and surface temperature gradients. Innovative approaches are urgently needed to overcome these significant shortcomings: one such approach is spray-cooling. Spray-cooling uses a nozzle to break up the liquid coolant into fine droplets that impinge individually on a heated surface. 'Low'- and 'high-temperature' spray-cooling applications involve surface temperatures below and above the critical heat flux (CHF), respectively. Single-phase spray-cooling (relies on liquid sensible heat rise only) provides greater operational stability and spatially uniform heat removal than liquid cooling, reducing the likelihood of large surface thermal gradients, particularly important for fragile electronic components. Two-phase spray-cooling (relies on liquid sensible heat rise and latent heat), are superior to single-phase systems and furthermore, compared to pool/flow boiling alternative systems, offer far less resistance to vapour removal from a heated surface enabling superior drop-surface contact . In fact, the CHF increases from 1.2 MW/m2 (for water pool boiling) to 10 MW/m2 for water sprays in two-phase applications. SANGRIA is an ambitious 3-year collaborative research programme aimed at investigating the fundamental mechanisms and transfer processes underlying spray-cooling. This project combines cutting-edge experimental techniques that furnish spatiotemporally-resolved diagnostics of the thermal, interfacial, and hydrodynamic fields, with multi-scale theory, modelling and 3-D high-fidelity numerical simulation that bridge the molecular and continuum-scales. The deep insights generated from SANGRIA will be harnessed to provide tools that are practically implementable by our industrial partners in order to maximise impact. Industrial and academic partners will provide additional technical support and feedback during the research programme plus pathways for direct industrial impact. The industrial partners include possible users of this technology: TMD Ltd (manufacturers of electronic equipment, high heat flux devices); Oxford naNosystems (manufacturers of enhanced heat transfer surfaces); ANSYS (Software development); Siemens (Software development); Spraying Systems Co. (Nozzle manufacturers); Syngenta (users of nozzles). LaVision offered a 15% discount on their Particle Master System. The academic partners from the University of Nottingham, Sorbonne University, Technical University of Darmstadt and Kyushu University are internationally recognised experts in single and two-phase thermal systems, including spray cooling. Participation and presentations during the HEXAG and PIN meetings will facilitate feedback and technology transfer.

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  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: BB/X011909/1
    Funder Contribution: 44,974 GBP

    Wireworms are major pests of cereal crops and root vegetables in Europe and also in North America. Seed treatments and other contact insecticides are used to protect crops from larval feeding damage. However, current chemical options are being withdrawn in Europe and it is very questionable when and if at all a new soil insecticide could be registered for wireworm management. Semiochemicals (naturally occurring development- and behaviour-modifying chemicals, such as different volatiles) are not harmful to the environment at the level they are required and can provide a "green" alternative for soil pest management. Similar to aboveground insects, soil-dwelling arthropods are also attracted to or repelled by root volatiles that occur in the gas phase and diffuse in soil pores. Whereas carbon dioxide is a universal attractant, root-emitted volatiles are more specific, mid-range signals that help soil pests to track and find their host plant. We have identified from crop roots and created synthetic volatile blends that attract wireworms in laboratory behavioural studies. We now aim to test if they retain their attractive properties in more realistic setups, i.e. crop fields. The main aim of this project is to thus carry out field trials with these synthetic blends (lures) to check if they are able to attract large numbers of wireworms into traps, containing germinating seeds, that we will build during the project. Such traps with and without the lures will be sunk in the soil in agricultural fields and checked regularly for captured wireworms. On the one hand, we want to see if traps with lures catch more wireworms then those without lures, which will indicate that they are suitable for precise pest monitoring before seed sowing. On the other hand, we will test lured traps to see if they can catch enough wireworms to reduce crop damage, and we will compare their performance with pesticide treatments. This will tell us if traps with lures can replace pesticides and provide growers with an alternative wireworm management tool. The proposed study is an important step in the development of monitoring and attract-and-kill strategies for wireworm management, which could also be extended to the management of other soil-dwelling pests.

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  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: EP/V050990/1
    Funder Contribution: 1,201,540 GBP

    We will create an artificially intelligent system which will self-optimise chemical manufacturing to flexibly adapt to variation in external factors (e.g. supply chain issues, cost, environment) by utilising chemical molecular property maps to suggest alternative suitable reagents, catalyst, solvents. This rapid, flexible system will be essential for promoting manufacturing by developing a more responsive chemical manufacturing framework. Here the routes will be tailored for agrochemical applications in line with our industrial partners' interests, but the components of the technology will be transferable across differing chemical manufacturing sectors. We will assemble and program a system capable of conducting several discrete chemical processing options including (i) changing catalyst or reagent choice (ii) altering reactor configuration (e.g. batch to CSTR) (iii) differing requirements based on response to external influences (e.g. cost changes due to COVID19). The system will be programmed by computationally intelligent algorithms which enable self-optimisation of the processes without user interaction or their immediate knowledge (i.e. being invisible) and made accessible through a user-friendly interface.

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  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: BB/T016043/1
    Funder Contribution: 403,813 GBP

    Pulses, in particular peas and broad beans, are important crops both in the UK and worldwide and they are grown as extensive monocultures. Even with long rotations, the crops are vulnerable to major epidemics of economically important pests and diseases, of which downy mildews (caused by the oomycete biotrophic pathogens Peronospora viciae f. sp. pisi (Pvp) and P. viciae f. sp. fabae (Pvf) in peas and beans, respectively) are the most serious. Breeding companies are challenged to produce cultivars with new resistance genes and will benefit from access to crop wild relatives carrying new resistance genes. The disease is managed through deployment of resistant varieties and chemical controls; however a lack of information on prevalent isolates can lead to serious yield losses in crops grown on contaminated sites through uninformed variety selection. Although a differential set of plant cultivars is available to identify the virulence genes in pathotypes of Pvp/Pvf, the test is too time-consuming to be of immediate use to commercial growers and does not allow rapid monitoring of the prevailing isolates. In addition, generating a model for pathogen spread is impossible using current methods. The problem is exacerbated by reports of resistance of oomycete pathogens to pesticides such as metelaxhyl. Without adequate control regimes, pea and broad bean production will incur greater crop wastage and it is therefore imperative that methods are developed to decrease growers' reliance on pesticides for the control of downy mildew. Deployment of pulse cultivars resistant to prevailing isolates is the most promising approach. Use of appropriate molecular tools will enable breeders, epidemiologists, modellers and growers to: a) identify the prevailing virulent isolate; b) investigate the epidemics of disease; c) monitor pathogen movement and d) deploy the appropriate cultivar(s) resistant to the prevailing isolate rapidly and thus control the disease in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. Accurate advice to growers about resistant cultivars requires correct information on the virulence of Pvp/Pvf races within the locality. However, diagnosing the pathogen at the isolate level requires the right tools. The innovative approach described in this project focuses on the development of molecular tools for accurate identification of Pvp/Pvf isolates as well as for breeding for resistance. We aim to identify new resistance sources to include in breeding programmes and develop molecular markers to enable rapid identification and monitoring of pathogen isolates. We will use next generation sequencing to identify polymorphisms in several isolates. These polymorphisms will then be utilised to generate isolate-specific markers. Once identified, markers will be tested under laboratory conditions and subsequently will also be checked in commercial fields. In addition, we will use biological control agents to control downy mildew disease. These will lead to increased crop productivity, reduced reliance on pesticides and less wastage from diseased plants.

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