Cereal crops such as wheat, rice and barley underpin the staple diet for human consumption globally. A multitude of threats to stable and secure yields of these crops exist including from losses caused by pathogens, particularly fungal. Plants have evolved complex mechanisms to resist pathogens including programmed cell death responses, the release of pathogenicity-related proteins and oxidativ...

Diagnosis in patients sensitised to multiple pollens is difficult due to the relationship between pollen and food allergens. Misdiagnosis is often a cause for unsuccessful specific immunotherapy. Wheat is a potent allergen source and is one of the causes of baker's asthma, food and pollen allergy. Recently, we have performed a study on pollen sensitisation in our area, where cereal crops are ve...

A study was carried out over a two year period (2009/2010 and 2012/2013) on an experimental farm in the Alentejo region (Beja), in southern Portugal where rainfed malt barley (Hordeum distichum L.) is sown at the end of autumn or beginning of winter (November–December). The aim of this experiment was to study the efficiency of the herbicide iodosulfuron-methyl-sodium to control post-emergence b...

L.) is an important cereal crop due to its high forage and grain yield potential. The objective of this study was assess mean performance heterotic effects 36 F

Zinc (Zn) deficiency negatively impacts the development and health of plants and affects crop yield. When experiencing low Zn, plants undergo an adaptive response to maintain Zn homeostasis. We provide further evidence for the role of F-group transcription factors, AtbZIP19 and AtbZIP23, in responding to Zn deficiency in Arabidopsis and demonstrate the sensitivity and specificity of this respon...

The development of molecular techniques for genetic analysis has led to a great increase in our knowledge of cereal genetics and our understanding of the structure and behaviour of cereal genomes. These molecular techniques, in particular the use of molecular markers, have been used to monitor DNA sequence variation in and among the species and create new sources of genetic variation by introdu...

Residues from cereal grain production are important feedstuffs for ruminants throughout the world. They are, however, low in protein and high in fiber, which limit feed intake and digestibility. The nutritive value of cereal crop residues can be improved by various processing methods, such as treatment with alkalis like sodium hydroxide or ammonia. Another means of improving nutritive value of ...

With the increasing pressure on crop production from the evolution of herbicide resistance, farmers are increasingly adopting Integrated Weed Management (IWM) strategies to augment their weed control. These include measures to increase the competitiveness of the crop canopy such as increased sowing rate and the use of more competitive cultivars. While there are data on the relative impact of th...

Preventing the introduction of weeds into the farming system through sowing of clean seeds is an essential component of weed management. The weed seed contamination of cleaned grain and herbicide resistance levels of the recovered weed seeds were examined in a study conducted across 74 farms in the Western Australian grainbelt. Most farmers grew and conserved their own crop seed. The majority o...

During 1996–2006, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland (MAFF), MTT Agrifood Research and the Finnish Geodetic Institute performed a joint remote sensing satellite research project. It evaluated the applicability of optical satellite (Landsat, SPOT) data for cereal yield estimations in the annual crop inventory program. Four Optical Vegetation Indices models (I: Infrared polynomia...