Baby Leaf Kale (BLK) has been popularised as a super food, through the growing health awareness and weight loss movement in the USA and Europe. Consequently, the demand for BLK has increased with global consumption rising by 40% in just one year (2012 - 2013). Diseases caused by mildews and bacteria are a major problem in BLK production. This problem has become even more challenging due to enforced reductions in agrochemical use as a result of changing legislation in early 2015. There are also tight restrictions on the Minimal Residue Level (MRL) of pesticides and fungicides which are defined product by product and frequently reviewed. CN Seeds is a UK-based commercial seed breeding company specializing in breeding baby leaf salad seeds, including BLK and herb seeds. BLK has been the company's best-selling product over the last two years, accounting for 12% of total revenues. The continual introduction of new varieties that meet and exceed customer needs is a key component of CN Seeds competitive strategy. This interchange project addresses the challenge of developing disease-resistance with a commercially desirable BLK variety by transferring knowledge between scientists at JIC and CN Seeds. The JIC scientists are working on developing disease resistance in oilseed rape, an important brassica closely related to BLK. The methods that they are using for variety improvement in oilseed rape can be directly applied to BLK, and this interchange aims to transfer that knowledge. The JIC scientists will visit CN Seeds to learn about commercial production of seed for the leaf salad market and the constraints imposed by diseases. This will enable them to tailor their research to address this issue more effectively. A CN Seeds scientist will also work at JIC, learning how to develop disease-resistance screening procedures and about a novel breeding technique known as associative transcriptomics. This genetic technique rapidly identifies gene loci associated with disease resistance which can be used to develop molecular markers for accelerated breeding. The interchange benefits both JIC and UK science generally through improved understanding of the commercial constraints on seed production; this will enable researchers to target their science to achieve greater impact. The interchange is supported financially by CN Seeds which benefits through improved competitiveness against overseas rivals, increasing exports and revenue for the UK economy.

In this project we will demonstrate how coordinating renewable energy availability with energy expenditure enables PACE horticulture facilities to be an asset to the evolving smart energy grid. The lack of fruit and vegetables on supermarket shelves this spring arose from a multitude of factors, including high energy prices discouraging UK growers from planting protected horticultural crops during winter 2021/22. Lighting, heating, and ventilation each contribute to energy bills for growers but lighting can comprise 70% of these costs in indoor farms and light intensity is immediately responsive to energy consumption (in contrast to heating and ventilation which vary over longer time periods). Our ultimate goal is to allow PACE horticulture infrastructure to present itself as a "shiftable load" to the electricity grid. This type of demand flexibility management is often deployed in complex, time-critical industrial processes where power consumption schedules can be varied provided that the final product falls within acceptable tolerances. Demand flexing has significant commercial advantages and will be increasingly important as controllable (fossil fuel) energy generation decreases as a proportion of our electricity supply. Despite the potential advantages of demand flexing for PACE horticulture we still need to determine how crop growth is affected by varied light irradiation. Plants alter their development dependent on prevailing environmental conditions. Varied light regimes consequently produce variation within the crops produced. We can control this 'developmental plasticity' by genetically manipulating the signalling pathways which control plants responses to light. We will assess whether previously generated 'timeless' plants (which we have designed to respond uniformly to light signals) are better able to maintain crop yield, quality, and uniformity when demand flexing is applied. In this project we have three distinct aims; 1) We need to demonstrate that demand flexing is applicable in PACE horticulture so that we can optimise energy usage whilst maximising crop productivity. 2) We need to understand how demand flexing can be integrated with existing flexible light regimes to maximise crop yield and quality. 3) We need to confirm that our genetically engineered 'timeless' plants have uniform performance during demand flexing so that we can maximise crop productivity and achieve Net Zero goals. Objectives We will exploit our understanding of crop photobiology and existing genetic resources to understand how best to apply demand flexing to PACE horticulture. 1) We will assess the growth and biochemical characteristics of crops grown under exemplar demand flexing schemes to demonstrate the utility of this approach. 2) We will assess how demand flexing can be integrated with a varied light regime to maximise crop yield. 3) We will assess the performance of 'timeless' plants in PACE horticulture so that we can maximise crop productivity during the application of demand flexing. Applications and Benefits The positioning of PACE horticulture as flexible assets in the evolving smart electricity grid will have commercial benefits for growers and will enhance the viability of the industry. Increased commercial viability of PACE horticulture will allow the distribution of infrastructure alongside sites of renewable energy generation. This distributed production will have societal benefits beyond those conferred by their produce alone. For instance, a distributed placement of smaller scale indoor farms within communities will reduce food mileage and provide job opportunities within these areas, enabling a Just Transition in energy use.

Nepal is one of the most undernourished countries in the world ranking 144th on the Human Development Index (HDI) out of 195 countries and territories (HDI 2016 Report, p.226). According to UNICEF, more than 50,000 children die each year in Nepal, with malnutrition as the underlying cause for more than 60 per cent of these deaths. Half of the children in Nepal are underweight and 75% of pregnant women are anaemic and experience poor nutrition. A major contributing factor to this problem is the inadequate state of agriculture in Nepal, especially the limited availability of good quality seed, poor choice of crop cultivars and inefficient cultivation practises. This suppresses the agricultural economy and severely limits the availability of nutritious, healthy food especially in the mountainous regions where the difficult terrain prevents access to local markets. Our project addresses United Nations Sustainable Development Goals SDG2 (Zero Hunger: end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture). We will develop private sector enterprise that builds on international efforts to improve health in Nepal including the USAID programme Knowledge-based Integrated Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition (KISAN, 2013-2018). The two intractable challenges we address in our research are chronic malnutrition and the poor state of agriculture in Nepal. We will establish a partnership between the John Innes Centre and CN Seeds Ltd in the UK, and Sarba Shrestha Seeds Ltd Pvt in Nepal. We will undertake knowledge exchange activities between the organisations to transfer skills and methods in plant health and crop improvement technologies. We will identify nutritious brassica vegetable cultivars which are rich in vitamins and minerals, especially iron, and improve seed packaging technology to improve their cultivation. At a Model Farm in Nepal, we will establish demonstration plots to show farmers about new cultivation methods and how improved seed quality and packaging can improve their yields. We will undertake a monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) audit to evaluate the impact of our work and provide feedback about cultivar preferences, seed performance and the impact of new cultivation practises that will enable us to target future activities more effectively. It will improve agricultural self-sufficiency and the health and well-being of the people of Nepal, reducing their dependence on diet supplements and imported crop produce.