Novel seed-based treatment for tackling flea beetle damage to protect the UK's oilseed rape production

Lead Research Organisation: National Institute of Agricultural Botany
Department Name: Centre for Research

Abstract

Rapeseed (Brassica napus subsp. napus; also known as oilseed rape) is the second most important arable crop in the UK. Uses of oilseed rape range from edible vegetable oils to biodiesel and animal feed. The recent disruption of international supply chains caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict has resulted in the prices of oilseed rape nearly doubled between February and April 2022, demonstrating the global demand of the crop and benefits for the UK growers to increase its production. However, pest pressure in the UK (e.g. cabbage stem flea beetle, CSFB) has led to 15-20% yield losses annually. Due to difficulties with crop establishment caused by CSFB and subsequent poor grower returns, rapeseed crop area has been decreasing from 530,000 ha in 2019 to 307,000 ha in 2021. Because lack of fully effective crop protection control of CSFB, growers are relying on cultural Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques such as later drilling and companion cropping to control the pest but had limited success. In the proposed project, we plan to test and verify a novel seed-based treatment to prevent further CSFB feeding and damage to the rapeseed tissues with extremely low agrochemical inputs, providing crop protection to mitigate pest damage for an important UK crop - oilseed rape.

Technical Summary

Rapeseed (Brassica napus subsp. napus; also known as oilseed rape) is the second most important arable crop in the UK. The recent disruption of international supply chains caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict has resulted in the prices of oilseed rape nearly doubled, demonstrating the global demand of the crop and benefits for the UK growers to increase its production. However, pest pressure in the UK (e.g. the main pest threat is cabbage stem flea beetle, CSFB; Psylliodes chrysocephala) has led to 15-20% yield losses annually.

We plan to test a novel seed-based JA treatment and its effectiveness to mitigates CSFB damage in both controlled and field conditions, using UK recommended oilseed rape varieties and treated with four treatment combinations (i.e. untreated control, seed treatment only, foliar treatment only, and both treatments). In this 6-month project, we propose to (1) test and evaluate whether the seed-based JA treatment is an economically viable tool that can be employed alone or in conjunction with other IPM-based methods to offer sufficient crop protection to selected UK recommended winter oilseed rape lines; (2) quantify the efficiency of the seed-based JA treatment individually and on UK recommended oilseed rape varieties; (3) verify whether the treatment impacts seed germination and early establishment and the effectiveness of the treatment that mitigates the CSFB damage at establishment, stem elongation and flowering under field conditions.

We will examine whether JA treatment will have impacts on oilseed rape seeds using seed germination- and establishment traits powered by SeedGerm and Videometer (WP1), establish field-based trials to study the effectiveness of the treatment that mitigates the CSFB damage using RGB and multispectral drones and the AirMeasurer platform (WP2), and collate research results for verification and dissemination to maximise impacts.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description 450 nm (blue), 890 nm and 970 nm (NIR) are highly correlated with seed quality and can be used for screening seeds with better uniformity and potentially vigour. Research is still ongoing as we are planning to combine several target wavelengths to study JA treatments during seed germination.
Exploitation Route After the publication, we shall expand the scale of the research (this awarded work was pump priming) with more rigorous testing in the lab and in the field.
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink
 
Description Talks with UK farmers through NIAB's membership forum
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
 
Title New drone based method has been developed to study seedling with drone-collected images 
Description OMEX supplied four UK recommended varieties with different yield production (e.g. Dart, Flemming, and Aurelia), with or without JA treatment. In the pre-germinating assessment, we used the Videometer system and its 19 probes to produce wavelengths from 365 nm to 970 nm plus fluorescence to image dry and imbibed seeds. These spectral traits were then used as proxies to correlate with seed quality (e.g. uniformity, etc.) and thus the classification of seed quality for the four UK varieties with or without JA treatment. This was then used as benchmark data for the field-based seedling establishment analysis. 
Type Of Material Physiological assessment or outcome measure 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Established seedling phenotyping in the field, with seedling trait analysis generated for different rapeseed varieties, with or without JA. 
 
Title Hyperspectral seed imaging analysis 
Description To safeguard wheat seed quality and vigour for better crop performance, it is important to assess seed morphological features and internal contents reliably and at a large scale, resulting in the importance of rapid and non-destructive seed analysis and the necessity of advancing analytical methods in this research domain. We have combined multispectral seed imaging, computer vision and automated image processing techniques to address methodological problems in seed phenotyping and seed-based phenotypic analysis in terms of throughput and accuracy. We have developed an automated algorithm that can segment individual seed from hundreds of wheat seeds acquired by multispectral imaging device, through which morphological traits (e.g. seed area, length, width, and roundness) and internal components (e.g. plant pigments, starch, vegetable oil and water content, etc.) can be quantified. We utilised morphological and spectral traits in clustering and principal component analysis, establishing a classification method to differentiate wheat seed varieties. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The paper is in press and will be published in 2024 
 
Description Developed an industry partner, Mr David Booty at OMEX Agriculture 
Organisation Omex Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution OMEX Agriculture is a major manufacturer of liquid fertilisers in the UK and a world leader in the formulation and manufacture of innovative plant nutrient fertilizers, biostimulants and seed treatments, with its products exported to over 80 countries around the world. We worked with OMEX's research and development (R&D) team and tested JA-treated crops reduced negative impacts of flea beetle infestation under field conditions, which helps sustainably produce healthy food whilst taking steps to improve the environment.
Collaborator Contribution Provided seeds and in-field seedling experiments and ground-truthing for the correlation analysis.
Impact This collaboration is multi-disciplinary and we worked on examining whether JA treatment will have impacts on oilseed rape seeds based on seed germination- and establishment traits using SeedGerm and Videometer, followed by the field-based trials to study the effectiveness of the treatment that mitigates the cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB) damage.
Start Year 2023
 
Title Hyperspectral imaging for seed quality 
Description Established hyperspectral seed imaging and time-series seed germination experiments, with radical and seedling trait analysis generated for different rapeseed varieties, with or without JA. The development is on going... 
Type Of Technology New/Improved Technique/Technology 
Year Produced 2024 
Impact Time-series seed imaging will demonstrate a new approach for us to assess radical and seedling trait analysis generated for different rapeseed varieties., which can be expanded to other crop species. 
URL https://www.geves.fr/research-development/research-activities/seed-quality-testing/
 
Description Presented the work at the Asia Pacific Plant Phenomics conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The 3rd Asia-Pacific Plant Phenomics International Conference (APPPcon) promotes the most advanced research progresses in plant phenotyping, the 3rd Asia- Pacific Plant Phenomics Conference (http://www.appp-con.com) will be held on July 7-10, 2023 in Sanya, a beautiful coastal city. We warmly welcome all scientists or representatives who are interested in plant phenotyping to participate the conference where plant phenotyping professionals can gather and exchange ideas, present their latest findings, and to network with their peers, so as to advance the field further towards a sustainable future.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.plant-phenotyping.org/index.php?index=580&event=3rd_Asia_Pacific_Plant_Phenomics_Interna...