00:00 Wide -
Market Stall
c.u.
Broccoli on market stall
Warwick
HRI sign
Closer
on above
Extreme
c.u. broccoli (x 2)
Revolving
display of Brassicas
Wide,
Broccoli on stand
Wide
– Warwick HRI Chelsea Show Stand
c.u
RHS Chelsea Flower Show signs
Wide
– flower display at show
Wide
– “reclining woman” garden
Wide
– Dr Teakle & colleague on Warwick HRI stand
Revolving
display
Guide Voice: Broccoli - George Bush Snr
famously announced his dislike of this vegetable and banned it from
the White House during his Presidency. According to scientists at
Warwick HRI, the Plant Research arm of the University of Warwick,
this could’ve been one of his less successful presidential
decisions. Broccoli, a member of the Brassica family, is more than
just a vegetable. Brassicas are environmentally friendly, a rich
source of antioxidants and can contribute to the future of our
energy needs. All in all it seems like the answer to a
President’s prayers!
Warwick HRI’s “Riding the Wave of Brassica
Bio-Diversity” display at this year’s Chelsea Flower
Show is set to be one of the successes of an event more commonly
associated with lush blooms and exotic garden design. Dr. Graham
Teakle of Warwick HRI explains the importance of these plants.
00:48 SOT: Dr. Graham Teakle, Brassica Geneticist,
Warwick HRI, University
of Warwick –
“Brassicas are potentially very important for our future.
We eat a lot of Brassica’s in our diet, so if we can improve
the health benefits they deliver to us then that’s a good
thing for everyone. They also have a potentially big role to play
in manufacturing, as a source of oils for making plastics or for
use in bio diesels, for instance.”
01:12 Wide
– Marshalls truck
Focus
pull, wild flowers to broccoli in field
Pan
across field of broccoli
Wide
– watering brassicas in greenhouse
Different
angle on above
c.u.
water dripping over young plants
Wide
– brassicas in greenhouse
Workers
stacking young plants in trays
Plant
growers (Roger & David White) checking young plants
c.u.
grower lifting plant tray
c.u.
young plant in grower’s hand
Plant
replaced in tray
Wide
– replacing tray in row
c.u.
running hand across foliage
Guide Voice: Working with growers such as
Marshall’s, the largest commercial grower/packer of brassicas
in Europe, Dr Teakle and his colleagues are able to develop new
strains of these plants that improve on some of their natural
characteristics. For example, by using wild relatives of more
common brassicas they can breed plants with higher resistance to
pests and fungal diseases, reducing the need for pesticides and
sprays.
The Warwick HRI Genetic Resources Unit holds the largest
collection of vegetable brassicas in the world and their scientists
believe it’s important to encourage cross breeding from the
widest possible range of Brassicas in order to maximise benefits
such as less need for pesticides, a naturally longer shelf life and
better health properties including defending against cancers. This
view is shared by many of the more progressive growers in
industry.
02:00 SOT: Roger White, Director of Westhorpe Flowers
and Plants Ltd., Organic Plant Producers for
Marshall’s – “Biodiversity
is extremely important, because as with organics, we’re using
no pesticides, or conventionally we’re trying to use less and
less pesticides. We need the breeder to come up with resistant
strains of brassicas, which can be incorporated into the
conventional plants we grow.”
02:25 Wide,
Dr Teakle and colleague on stand
Wide,
visitors at show
Pan
from visitor (actor Alex Kington) to garden display
Wide
of garden exhibit
Wide
– tower of flowering plants
Wide
– “5 a Day” exhibit
c.u.
of above
Wide
– “Lifelong Learning” banner
c.u.
microscope on Warwick HRI stand
Wide
– Warwick HRI stand
Revolving
brassica display
Guide Voice: It’s the diversity of
Brassicas that Warwick HRI is keen to promote.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, sponsored by Saga Insurance, is one
of the world’s leading horticultural events, attracting plant
lovers from around the globe. It showcases some truly special
garden designs and spectacular displays of flowers – but it
also aims to raise the publics’ understanding and
appreciation of all things related to plants and horticulture. The
“Lifelong Learning” section of the show is particularly
focused on the science behind gardening and Warwick HRI hope their
presentation will open minds to the value of the large and diverse
genus of plants known as Brassicas.
03:00 SOT: Dr. Graham Teakle –
“When breeders are breeding new varieties of brassicas,
say a cauliflower breeder breeding a new variety of cauliflower, he
tends to cross between the different elite varieties within the
cauliflower family - but that is perhaps losing sight of the huge
range of diversity and potential source of beneficial genes in all
the other different varieties of brassicas; so, what we’re
trying to address is to produce technologies and materials that
breeders can then tap into that will make it easier for them to use
these wider, more diverse sources of genes for improving individual
crop types like cauliflowers or broccoli, for
instance.”
03:45 Wide
– Warwick HRI stand with surfboard in foreground
c.u.
Oilseed Rape flower
Wide
– surfboard and oilseed rape plant
c.u.
revolving brassica display
Guide Voice: The display even includes a
prototype surfboard, constructed by the Eden Project in part from
plant oils. Crossing one form of Brassica, Oil Seed Rape, with
other forms such as Broccoli could expand the range of vegetable
oils available to manufacturing - demonstrating one more product
that could benefit from broccoli in the future.
Brassicas – good for the environment and healthy too.
Maybe George Snr should’ve encouraged his boys to eat their
greens!
04:12 End
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