Nitrogen is the major agronomic input that determines the performance and productivity of crops, in both rain fed systems in the UK and Western Europe and the irrigated north-western plains of India, as well as resource poor marginal eco-systems of eastern plains. This has consequences for production costs, with nitrogen being the major production cost for both Indian and UK farmers. Additionally the environmental footprint of the crop is affected as nitrogen contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and to contamination of ground water.
The new centre is led by Professor Peter Shewry at Rothamsted Research and Dr Karnam Venkatesh at ICAR-IIWBR and brings together the major wheat research providers in the two countries. In India these are ICAR-IIWBR which has responsibility for delivering improved wheat varieties to Indian growers, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi (Indian Agricultural Research Institute), NRCPB, New Delhi (National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology), PAU, Ludhiana (Punjab Agriculture University) and BISA, Ludhiana (Bourlag Institute for South Asia). Strong collaborations are already in place between these partners and the UK partnership, which comprises researchers at NIAB, the Universities of Nottingham and Bristol and the John Innes Centre.
Professor Peter Shewry commented: “The challenge of increasing food production for an increasing global population while minimising the environmental impact requires new research strategies, bringing together expertise on a global scale. It is very significant that this has been recognised by the Newton-Bhabha Fund, with the INEW Virtual Joint Centre bringing together the leading wheat research groups in India and the UK.”
“In addition to developing genetic and management strategies to reduce the reliance of intensive wheat production on high levels of nitrogen fertilisation, INEW will also generate a legacy of trained scientists and shared technologies and facilities, facilitating long term collaborations between scientists in these two major wheat producing countries.”
The Centre is one of four similar initiatives funded by a total of £10M investment from the Newton-Bhabba fund, which supports collaboration between UK and Indian scientists to help meet the challenge of sustainably producing enough food for a growing population whilst reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The funding (£5M from the UK with matched resources from India) will create four new Virtual Joint Centres in Agricultural Nitrogen delivered in partnership by BBSRC, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Department of Biotechnology India (DBT).
Further information about the new virtual centre can be found here: www.cerealsdb.uk.net/cerealgenomics/INEW/index.html