National Reference Collection

CHAP’S National Reference Collection of biotic crop threats is physically located held at three centres: CABI, in Egham, FERA in Sand Hutton near York and Rothamsted in Harpenden.

It brings together the world-class collections of all CHAP partners under one portal. It represents the UK’s first fully comprehensive collection of plant associated and pathogenic fungi and bacteria, agricultural weeds, nematodes, pest insects and crop samples of importance to UK agriculture. It will be accessible through a single searchable database to search for isolates of crop biotic threats.

The reference collection will mean that commercial organisations in the Agritech/Biotech sector will be able to access a unique, world-class resource of crop-relevant (and ABS-compliant) biological samples, thereby considerably broadening industry’s scope in the search for new biologicals, including potential new biopesticides.

The reference collection aims to improve industry’s ability to access potential candidates for new biopesticides as well as providing crucial target species for traditional pesticide development. The service team also works in close collaboration with CHAP’s Fungal Biopesticide Development Laboratory, with a pipeline of newly collected pathogens and pests obtained via CropMonitor-Pro.

CHAP’s collection will be an unrivalled resource within the UK for the crop health community and will be of particular interest to commercial organisations and academic communities.

Commercial organisations can search for sources of novel biological products and potential biopesticides and exploit the background data to extend plant protection product life. This might include genetically, and geographically, varied field samples of interest to the agrichemical industry, which can then be tested against the standardised reference collection, an important efficiency support and audit requirement for future product registrations.Academic communities, plant breeders and plant pathologists who can access the strains and associated data to enhance their investigations. This may aid an understanding of population properties of different biotic crop threats.

Our services include:

Access to novel biological organisms with potential Agri-tech applications
Access to a national network of data
Long term storage of key crop reference samples of national importance
Provision of safe storage and confidential deposit of important strains for industry and researchers

Related Capabilities

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For any further information about this capability or to discuss a collaboration and/or grant for a commercially funded project, complete the form below.