Every year, billions of dollars’ worth of crops worldwide perish due to pre-harvest sprouting (PHS), a phenomenon in which grain or seeds germinate on the plant before harvest. The process is triggered by a variety of factors, such as warm, moist weather, which can spoil the crop and threaten the global food supply. But this could be a thing of the past, as a team of researchers, primarily from the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Denmark, has uncovered the genetic mechanism that controls when barley should sprout.
Uncovering the genetic mechanism that causes barley crops to sprout early
