b'INDUSTRY NEWSTAILORED TO SEED PROFESSIONALS, INDUSTRY NEWS DELIVERS THE PEOPLE, RESEARCH, BUSINESS AND PRODUCT NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW. SUBMISSIONS ARE WELCOME. EMAIL US AT NEWS@ISSUESINK.COM.INDUSTRY NEWS restrictions, and out of an abundance of caution for the health USDAs National Institute of Food and Agriculture hasand safety of ASTA attendees.awarded 12 grants totaling over $7 million to initiate research on big data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive technologies needed to keep U.S. agriculture onDue to the ongoing pandemic, the Canadian Seed Trade the leading edge of food and agricultural production. TheseAssociation (CSTA) is holding their upcoming semi-annual grants are awarded through the USDA-NIFA Agriculturemeeting virtually from Nov. 23-26, 2020. Building on the success and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Food and Agricultureof our virtual annual meeting in the summer, we will again be Cyberinformatics and Tools (FACT). offering a full program via Zoom.A pilot project using True Potato Seed in Angonia District,The Canadian Barley Research Coalition (CBRC) will invest Tete province in Mozambique shows great potential to drasti- $2.7 million over five years in the University of Saskatchewans cally improve and innovate potato production. The potato crop is(USask) Crop Development Centre (CDC) through a core breed-increasingly important for food security and farmer livelihoodsing agreement to develop barley varieties with improved agro-in Mozambique and many countries in Africa. Between Augustnomics, disease resistance and end-use quality.2019 and April 2020, Solidaridad Mozambique and Solynta exe-cuted the first hybrid true potato seed (TPS) field trial ever in Mozambique: growing potatoes from true seeds rather thanA pioneering project to help identify and capture key genetic traditional seed potatoes. data that can be used by wheat breeders to speed up the devel-opment of more resilient varieties has been launched by RAGT Seeds. The work aims to capture genetic variation in European The Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) at the University of Illinoisbread wheat using sequencing technologies and to translate this has been selected by United States Agency for Internationalto enhance marker-assisted selection and genomic selection in Development (USAID) to lead a new $1 million project RAGTs wheat breeding programmes. It will involve scanning Innovation to Impact (i2i), as part of Feed the Future, the U.S.around 260 commercial wheat varieties carefully selected for Governments global hunger and food security initiative. their genetic diversity.The British Crop Production Council (BCPC) will go aheadScientists from the UKs foremost agricultural research insti-this year with the theme The environment for UK crop produc- tutes have teamed up to create a new UK Crop Microbiome tion outside the EUunderstanding the opportunities. But, inCyrobank (UK-CMCB) to safeguard future research and facili-common with so many events of its kind, current travelling andtate the sustainable yield improvement of the UKs six major food social distancing restrictions have required BCPC and organis- crops including barley, oats, oil seed rape, potato, sugar beet and ers TSG Forum, to hold the 2020 Congress as a virtual event. wheat. CABI, who is leading the BBSRC project, joins research-ers from Rothamsted Research, Scotlands Rural College (SRUC) and the John Innes Centre, in developing a Noahs Ark of UK ASTAs 60th Vegetable & Flower Seed Conference, formerlymicrobes from crop systems that will form the first publicly avail-planned for Orlando, Florida, will be held virtual, February 1-3,able resource of its kind anywhere in the world. 2021. The difficult but necessary decision was made by the ASTA Board of Directors, along with the ASTA Vegetable & Flower Seed Division, due to ongoing international and company travel 36IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'