Topic description and stories

Planting ideas: Botanic Garden opens access with living collections portal

02 Oct 2020

A new web portal to Cambridge University Botanic Garden's entire living collection, 14,000 plants, aims to open access and fast-track urgent global...

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Philip Carella (left) & Sebastian Schornack (right) at the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Ancient defence strategy continues to protect plants from pathogens

12 Jul 2019

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have uncovered striking similarities in how two distantly related plants defend themselves against...

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Enemy at the gates: the battle to save our crops

22 May 2019

A gene newly-linked to plant self-defence may hold the key to saving important crops from a deadly disease, scientists at Cambridge's Sainsbury...

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Opinion: GM crops already feed much of the world today – why not tomorrow’s generations too?

24 May 2016

Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) discusses how genetically modified crops could help solve the problem of food...

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This microscopic image shows the spores and hyphae of 'friendly' arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus interacting with a plant root.

‘Smoke detector’ enables fungal partnership that allowed plants to first survive on land

18 Dec 2015

A protein that detects hormones in smoke has a much wider and more ancient role in the plant kingdom – detecting microscopic soil fungi which...

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Dry rice field at dusk

Fungus enhances crop roots and could be a future 'bio-fertiliser'

04 May 2015

“Ancient relationship” between fungi and plant roots creates genetic expression that leads to more root growth. Common fungus could one day be used...

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Willow trees in bud

Researchers identify first ‘coppicing response’ gene in willow

07 Jan 2014

Scientists have, for the first time, discovered a gene that contributes to the ‘coppicing response’ of willows - the ability to make new growth when...

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