Rui Guan from Rothamsted Research has shared her research on ‘Genome editing and regeneration of Brassica napus protoplasts’ with us, viability x transfection x editing x regeneration = gene-edited plant, bottleneck is tackled!

Penny Hundleby from John Innes Centre has given the community very positive update on Brassica transformation. The editing efficiency has been successfully increased from 10% to 60-100%. There’re also promising result on improving the transformation efficiency in B. napus!

Jovaras Krasauskas from John Innes Centre has given a talk on ‘Engineering ion flux of the stomatal complex for enhanced photosynthesis and water use efficiency’. Stomatal transpiration is the centre of a crisis in water availability and crop production.

Jessica Hughes from John Innes Centre sharing the update on the four years of feeding cabbage stem flea beetle: from controlled screens to candidate genes. These little picky eaters have their own standards for highly palatable and non palatable lines!

Sam Warner from John Innes Centre has talked to us about ‘Role of bud dormancy in flowering time control in winter oilseed rape and its association with yield stability’. Warming during bud dormancy is associated with low yield!

Mollie Langdon from Rothamsted Research & Uni of Bath has presented her journey in exploring the role of ARF2 in controlling seed size in B. oleracea using genome editing. After excelling in editing B. oleracea she will start working with B. napus too!

Yongju Huang from University of Hertfordshire has talked to us about the current understanding of phoma stem canker and light leaf spot on oilseed rape in the UK. Great progress! Thank you from protecting the rapeseed from these two diseases!

Big thanks to Graham Teakle from University of Warwick for starting the 2021 annual DEFRA OREGIN stakeholder forum - General establishment for integrated WOSR crop management with an update on the OREGIN genetic diversity panel!

Kevin King from Rothamsted Research has presented the emerging pathogen threats to UK Brassica health, from studying two major oilseed rape diseases he has realise how much the pathogen biology knowledge could contribute to the plant health and management 👍

Duncan Coston from ADAS has given us information on the Survey of Crop Pests and Diseases on behalf of Julie A Smith and Sacha White. Thank you very much! 👏👏👏

John Hammond from Uni of Reading has talked about the in-field quality mapping for UK arable crops, this technology allows a vast quantity of data to be generated. He’s next aim is to help farmers understand the data and use the information in management

Jingyu Hua Biology at York University of York Bancroft Lab giving interesting talk on how controlling glucosinolates in B. napus can protect plants from pests 🌱🪳and other diseases 🦠and help to use rape cake for animal feed 🐖🐏🐄

Jon West from Rothamsted Research presented his research on the ‘Effect of leaf waxes on pest and disease interactions’ 👍👍👍

Apologies from principal investigator Prof. Ian Bancroft who’s pinged by the track and trace. He’s extremely upset in the photo as he had to give this year’s OREGIN meeting a miss. Audience had a very good laugh and we all hope he’d have a great time at home!

👏👏👏Thank you Shannon Greer from University of Warwick for sharing with us on ‘Xanthomonas threats: mitigating existing, emerging and future threats to UK agriculture’!

Liam Wilkinson from Limagrain UK on ‘Redefining Vigour - Using Autumn Dynamic Growth to guide agronomic practice.’ Do you know what vigour is? 🥰

Thanks again the amazing Yongju Huang from University of Hertfordshire to give us updates on WP2.1 (core pathogen sets), WP4.1 (phenotyping of field trials) & WP6.1 (provision of molecular data to underpin rapeseed breeding)! 👏👏👏

Thank you Kyle Macleod from University of Warwick for introducing new sources of resistance to turnip yellows virus from Brassica oleracea and Brassica rapa and their introgression into oilseed rape! 👍👍👍

Thank you Colin Peters from NIAB for giving us more insights into cabbage stem flea beetle! 👍👍👍

We’ve come to the end of 2021 annual DEFRA OREGIN stakeholder forum. Big thanks to all attendees, members of the community, our reliable technical support, the organisers Lenka Havlickova, Georgia Mitrousia and our chair Mark Nightingale! See you in 2022 ❤️