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Farming Today: 21/02/23 Salad shortages; Wheat disease; Juniper reintroduction

21/02/23 Salad shortages; Wheat disease; Juniper reintroduction

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 21/02/23 Salad shortages; Wheat disease; Juniper reintroduction

Salad shortage in supermarkets, disease-resistant wheat and juniper re-introduction.

Bad weather in southern Europe leads to salad shortages in British supermarkets.
Scientists draw on bank of old wheat varieties to tackle disease.
Re-introducing juniper.

Social media has been awash with pictures of empty supermarket shelves - where there should be salad, nothing but gaps. The problem seems to be country-wide and across all stores, from the discounters to the big supermarkets. Dr Jim Monaghan, Professor of crop science at Harper Adams, says extremes of weather in southern Spain, coupled with ferry strikes have contributed to the shortages. Some British growers haven't planted early crops under glass this season because of the high cost of energy needed to heat them. Farmers say it's time that the prices for fresh produce reflect the seasonal variation in availability.

An international investigation by scientists, to combat a new wheat disease which has devastated crops in South America and Bangladesh, has found part of the answer in grains gathered by British embassy staff from around the world, 150 years ago. Using brand-new gene data analysis called AgRenSeq, the scientists are now well on the way to tackling Wheat Blast - a fungal disease which can cause 100 percent crop loss in severe cases.

We're talking about re-introductions this week, from birds and mammals, to insects and plants. Juniper was once a familiar site on the downs of southern England, but with changes to land use and agriculture, it's now a protected species, which has all but disappeared from much of the landscape. Conservationists are working to re-introduce it on the chalklands of South Wiltshire.  Matt Pitt from the charity Plantlife has been working with volunteers to plant juniper on farmland in the Wylye Valley 

Presenter = Anna Hill
Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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21/02/23 Salad shortages; Wheat disease; Juniper reintroduction

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