Читать книгу Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding - George Acquaah - Страница 48

The information regarding the UK experience is per personal communication with W.T.B. Thomas of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, UK. The equivalent of a land grant system does not operate in the UK but, up to the 1980s, there were a number of public sector breeding programs at research institutes such as the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI) (now part of John Innes Centre), Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), Welsh Plant Breeding Station (now Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research), and National Vegetable Research Station (now Horticultural Research International) with the products being marketed through the National Seed Development Organization (NSDO). In addition, there were several commercial breeding programs producing successful finished cultivars, especially for the major crops. Following a review of “Near Market Research,” the plant breeding program at PBI and the whole portfolio of NSDO were sold to Unilever and traded under the brand PBI Cambridge, later to become PBI Seeds. The review effectively curtailed the breeding activities in the public sector, especially of the major crops. Plant breeding in the public sector did continue at IGER, HRI, and SCRI but was reliant on funding from the private sector for at least a substantial part of the program. Two recent reviews of crop science research in the UK have highlighted the poor connection between much public sector research and the needs of the plant breeding and end‐user communities. The need for public good plant breeding was recognized in the BBSRC Crop Science Review to translate fundamental research into deliverables for the end‐user and is likely to stimulate pre‐breeding activity at the very least in the public sector.