Over 800 staff, including 150 visiting scientists and 100 postgraduates, work on multidisciplinary research programmes that relate to crop production systems and their interactions with the environment.
Expertise ranges from molecular biology to field studies.
New autumn-sown, determinate genotypes have resulted from collaboration between Rothamsted crophysiologists and French plant breeders. The effects of spacings, nitrogen applications and cropping dates on dye production as well as improved methods of dye extraction from plants are being evaluated. The overall objective is to find out if textile dyes can be obtained on a commercial scale, initially to supply niche markets using environmentally-sound techniques. The wider environmental impacts of heavy metal pollutants in soils, e.g. zinc, copper, cadmium, nickel, chromium and lead, are causing increasing concern and there is a need for effective and affordable solutions to this persistent problem. These plants, which grow naturally on metal-rich soils, accumulate up to 1000 times more metal in the above ground parts than normal plants.