Pick the winners by profiling a leaf – LCG Genomics

Some ten percent of raspberry plants produce yellow fruits that are not commercially acceptable but it can take years to identify those plants. Now, with LGC Genomics’ technology, farmers and breeders can have the leaves analysed to determine the genotype and find out quickly which plants have markers for yellow fruit, saving years of otherwise wasted effort.

In the Innovation Hub at the 2023 Royal Norfolk Show, LGC Genomics will be discussing how farmers can use their technology to determine which of the varieties they are growing are more resilient to local conditions and how it can accelerate breeding programmes for breeders of all sizes.

Ahead of the show we spoke to Chris Roe-Bullion of LGC about the technology.

We’ve been involved in ag-bio for over 20 years but started to use our high-throughput technology to provide Covid testing during the pandemic and have since expanded our work in human healthcare.

We work with several of the larger well-known breeders, but also with soft fruit growers and even individual farmers in some cases.

There are farmers who ask us things like ‘why am I seeing mildew infection on this crop but not that one?’ and we can give them some answers. We can genotype the plant and say ‘actually, it’s because this plant is genetically different to that one’. We can run small trials for farmers to provide those insights, they just need to collect leaf samples.

The service we offer is called marker assisted breeding, which helps breeders identify which strains have the attributes they’re looking for much more quickly than waiting for the plant to grow to maturity.

For example, we work with Angus Soft Fruits on their raspberries. About 10% of all raspberries will produce yellow fruit, which no-one wants, they’re not commercially viable, but the plants are phenotypically identical to normal raspberry plants, and take two years to reach maturity.

We can identify which plants will produce yellow fruit at a very early stage, saving them two years of work and the money associated with it.

While we do support the larger breeders, we can also help the smaller guys and can usually improve their productivity with our tools.

LGC Genomics is appearing in the Innovation Hub at the 2023 Royal Norfolk Show.
Read more about the 2023 Innovation Hub >>