Heat tolerance rice trials success for Alora

Ocean agriculture company Alora, based at Norwich Research Park, has just completed its latest set of trials for its new heat-tolerant rice traits that have proven to have been a resounding success.

The company, which moved to Norwich Research Park in February last year, is intent on solving world hunger by developing new traits of staple crops like rice and wheat that can grow in higher temperature environments caused by climate change and on the surface of the world’s oceans in salinated water which will drastically reduce the need for fresh water and pesticides.

It has just received the results of its latest, and largest to date, glasshouse trials where it has been growing three different gene-edited variants of rice in different conditions. It found that two of these variants had produced much higher yields than the control crop at both normal and very high temperatures.

Under normal temperatures and growing environments, two of the variants produced yields that were 53% and 43% higher than the control crop. And, in temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius, the results were even more remarkable with yields that were 273% and 103% higher than the control. In these types of trials, traditionally, a 10% improvement is regarded as a good result!

These results are massively encouraging as Alora is now embarking on what it believes to be the UK’s first large-scale rice growing field trial to gain further evidence of their variants’ heat tolerance and increased yields. It has sown 17,000 rice plants at the John Innes Centre’s Church Farm in Bawburgh.

The results of these field trials will be known late October. Whilst Alora is expecting the results to be a little lower than the controlled glasshouse trials, the team is still confident that it will demonstrate that their new variants show significantly better yields. The results should provide very robust evidence that Alora’s technology and gene editing techniques work and can then be scaled up. This will be critical to Alora’s next steps in developing its business.

Rory Hornby, COO and co-founder of Alora, explains, “If, as we expect, the results from our largescale field trial proves that our technology and techniques work, we will then be able to approach investors with a huge amount of confidence that we have a concept that is proven and that can be scaled up with the right partner and right level of funding. All of our field trial results are being verified by the John Innes Centre, acting as an independent third party, and will then need to be approved by our industry’s regulator.”

“We will need new investment to scale up and replicate the production of our rice seeds and then sell them to agricultural businesses serving countries around the world that are facing into higher temperatures and the impacts of climate change. We will also be able to use some of the funding to run trials for our salinated water-tolerant varieties of rice so that we can progress towards our goal of growing rice on the surfaces of the world’s oceans.”

“Climate change and global warming is resulting in more heatwaves and spikes in temperature, as we have witnessed ourselves in the UK this summer. Rice is typically susceptible to short-term heatwaves, especially when night-time temperatures also remain high. It not only damages yields but also the quality of crop.”

“We’re hoping to create new opportunities to grow rice and other staple crops in new countries whilst maintaining agriculture in those that are now at risk. Norfolk is a hotspot for agriculture – both for innovation and in practice – and the equipment, skills and knowledge that we have at our disposal here at Norwich Research Park has proven to be vitally important for our company’s development.”

Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation for Norwich Research Park, said, “Alora is a prime example of a company that moved to Norwich Research Park because of the world-leading knowledge of our researchers, the technology platforms they can access and the high value laboratory and office accommodation that enables them to progress quickly.”

“Their collaboration with the John Innes Centre in running field trials for their innovative approach to growing new variants of rice has proved to be invaluable and we are so happy that they have made such rapid progress in developing their concepts. We will continue to support Alora in its development and share the successes of its story.”

www.alora.world