Regen. Skills new podcast: The genius of plant adaptation to stress in their environment

With Dr White! On the days after this episode was released, we had a few dozen signups for the microbe course only, and I finally figured out that it was probably this podcast. I haven’t listened to it, but it must mention our course, as Oliver (host) has taken it.

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Harriet calls historic landraces misbehaved rascals. :slight_smile:

Excellent podcast. Scientist admitting they know fuckall in fact , despite all they incredible stuff they do know.
How refreshing! Is there still hope for science then?

Great podcast. It didn’t mention the endophyte course, at least I didn’t hear it mentioned so maybe people googled James White and found it that way.
My favourite part was the story from James White about a corn breeder he’s working with. This chap took some landrace corn known to associate with nitrogen fixing bacteria, along with lots of other endophytes, and crossed them into some modern hybrids. Results were very positive except for one oddity. They introduced a gene to discourage cross pollination so that this new corn would not get contaminated out in the field but it didn’t work. This new gene kept being turned off somehow. They don’t know how but suspect some endophyte or perhaps a posse of endophytes are switching the gene off!

I got to the end, having enjoyed it thoroughly, and realized I forgot to listen carefully for mentions of the endophyte class, but I also couldn’t remember any.