Reducing seed losses and waste in parsnip and other crops

Crops such as parsnip flower and set seed over a period of about 6 weeks depending on weather conditions. As a result, the bulk seed harvested shows high heterogenicity leading to a lot of seed being wasted during processing before a saleable batch is obtained. The aim of this CASE PhD project is to use a combination of phenomics and modern forward and reverse genetics approaches in order to investigate the genetic control of seed abscission, plant architecture and flowering time in parsnip and related crops and select elite parsnip breeding lines with superior seed quality characteristics.