Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SEA-More-Yield (Sea-More-Yield: A Blue Biotechnology Solution for the Reduction of Pod Shatter in Bio-Oil Producing Crops)
Reporting period: 2017-12-01 to 2018-11-30
The activities of work package 3 have provided a detailed insight into how SMY technology impacts the physiology of the OSR pod and how it delivers its anti-shatter effect. The IND gene expression data obtained from the pods in the field trials provides strong evidence that the SMY mode of action does transfer to the field and does deliver real yield increases for the grower. Work package 4 activities during period 2 led to the generation of adequate amounts of refined biomolecules for the formulation of SMY2. This has resulted in actionable data for the scale-up and commercialization of a revised SMY formulation with enhanced potency and robustness. The commercialisation activity of SMY has allowed the updating of the commercialisation plan to reflect the best route to market and will leverage the valuable data generated during the course of the project for the maximum economic benefit of the consortium, the EU and other stakeholders. The activity of work package 6 has led to improvements in processing efficiency, product consistency, security of raw material supply and production capacity to serve future market needs. This work has put the consortium in a great position to capitalise on future market demand for the SMY technology. Knowledge transfer and dissemination activities have resulted in growers and distributors understanding how the SMY technology is used and what benefits it can deliver from a crop management and economic perspective. The expected impacts outlined in the original DoA are still relevant. Based on the field trial yield results obtained during the project a number of market and agronomy factors will be important for the exploitation of the results. Chief among these factors is the variety of OSR. Two popular varieties used by growers are Anastasia and V316 OL, SMY delivered an average of 9.7% and 20% yield increases, respectively, in these varieties. Evaluation of yield in the Department of Agriculture recommended WOSR varieties over the 2 years resulted in an average yield increase of 7.7%.