Helping plants to help themselves 2 June 2010 With the need to
feed an ever increasing world population, we must reduce crop
yield losses in new, sustainable ways. A paper published in the
journal Food Security by Dr Toby Bruce from Rothamsted Research
(an institute of BBSRC), emphasises the need to reduce crop
losses caused by pests. The Food and Agriculture Organisation,
predicts that by 2050 global food production needs to increase
by 70%. As an alternative to agrochemicals, natural plant
defence could be induced with activators. Toby Bruce said,
"Natural plant immunity is likely to become more important in
the future; this is an approach which exploits natural chemicals
as treatments to modulate defence responses." Signals released
by damaged plants activate the defence mechanisms of
neighbouring plants and make them more resistant to the
impending insect attack. According to Dr Bruce, such signals
could be used as alternative treatments to replace synthetic
insecticides which could then be reserved for p